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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. 



PENCILLIMS BY THE WAY 



WRITTEN 




DURING SOME YEARS OF RESIDENCE AND TRAVEL 



IN 



EUROPE 






BY 



JS". PAEKEE WILLIS, 



NEW YORK: 

CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET. 

1852. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by 
CHAELES 8CEIBNEE, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
of New Tovk. 



\rH 



<$** 



C. "W. BENEDICT, 

Stkkeotyper and Printer, 
201 "William Street 



PREFACE 



A word or two of necessary explanation, dear reader. 

I had resided on the Continent for several years, and had been 
a year in England, without being suspected, I believe, in the 
societies in which I lived, of any habit of authorship. No pro- 
duction of miae had ever crossed the water, and my Letters to 
the New-York Mirror, were (for this long period, and I presumed 
would be forever), as far as European readers were concerned, an 
unimportant and easy secret. Within a few months of returning 
to this country, the Quarterly Review came out with a severe 
criticism on the Pencillings by the "Way, published in the New- 
York Mirror. A London publisher immediately procured a 
broken set of this paper from an American resident there, and 
called on me with an offer of £300 for an immediate edition of 
what he had — rather less than one half of the Letters in this 
present volume. This chanced on the day before my marriage, 
and I left immediately for Paris — a literary friend most kindly 
undertaking to look over the proofs, and suppress what might 
annoy any one then living in London. The book was printed in 



v iii PREFACE. 



three volumes, at about $7 per copy, and in this expensive shape 
three editions were sold by the original publisher. After his 
death a duodecimo edition was put forth, very beautifully illus- 
trated ; and this has been followed by a fifth edition lately pub- 
lished, with new embellishments, by Mr. Virtue. The only 
American edition (long ago out of print) was a literal copy of 
this imperfect and curtailed book. 

In the present complete edition, the Letters objected to by the 
Quarterly, are, like the rest, re-published as originally written. 
The offending portions must be at any rate, harmless, after being 
circulated extensively in this country in the Mirror, and promi- 
nently quoted from the Mirror in the Quarterly — and this being 
true, I have felt that I could gratify the wish to be put fairly on 
trial for these alleged offences — to have a comparison instituted 
between my sins, in this respect, and Hamilton's, Muskau's, Von 
Raumer's, Marryat's and Lockhart's — and so, to put a definite 
value and meaning upon the constant and vague allusions to these 
iniquities, with which the critiques of my contemporaries abound. 
I may state as a fact, that the only instance in which a quotation 
by me from the conversation of distinguished men gave the least 
offence in England, was the one remark made by Moore the poet 
at a dinner party, on the subject of O'Connell. It would have 
been harmless, as it was designed to be, but for the unexpected 
celebrity of my Pencillings ; yet with all my heart I wished it 
unwritten. 

I wish to put on record in this edition (and you need not be at 



PREFACE. ix 



the trouble of perusing them unless you please, dear reader !) an 
extract or two from the London prefaces to " Pencillings," and 
parts of two articles written apropos of the book's offences. 
The following is from the Preface to the first London edition : — 
" The extracts from these Letters which have appeared in the 
public prints, have drawn upon me much severe censure. Ad- 
mitting its justice in part, perhaps I may shield myself from its 
remaining excess by a slight explanation. During several years' 
residence in Continental and Eastern countries, I have had 
opportunities (as attache to a foreign Legation), of seeing phases 
of society and manners not usually described in books of travel. 
Having been the Editor, before leaving the United States, of a 
monthly Review, I found it both profitable and agreeable, to con- 
tinue my interest in the periodical in which that Review was 
merged at my departure, by a miscellaneous correspondence. 
Foreign courts, distinguished men, royal entertainments, &e. &c, 
— matters which were likely to interest American readers more 
particularly — have been in turn my themes. The distance of 
America from these countries, and the ephemeral nature and 
usual obscurity of periodical correspondence, were a sufficient 
warrant to my mind, that the descriptions would die where they 
first saw the light, and fulfil only the trifling destiny for which 
they were intended. I indulged myself, therefore, in a freedom 
of detail and topic which is usual only in posthumous memoirs 
— expecting as soon that they would be read in the countries and 
by the persons described, as the biographer of Byron and Sheri- 



PREFACE. 



dan, that these fruitful and unconscious themes would rise from 
the dead to read their own interesting memoirs ! And such a 
resurrection would hardly be a more disagreeable surprise to that 
eminent biographer, than was the sudden appearance to me of 
my own unambitious Letters in the Quarterly Review. 

" The reader will see (for every Letter containing the least 
personal detail has been most industriously republished in the 
English papers) that I have in some slight measure corrected 
these Pencillings by the Way. They were literally what they 
were styled — notes written on the road, and despatched without a 
second perusal ; and it would be extraordinary if, between the 
liberty I felt with my material, and the haste in which I scrib- 
bled, some egregious errors in judgment and taste had not crept 
in unawares. The Quarterly has made a long arm over the 
water to refresh my memory on this point. There are, passages 
T would not re-write, and some remarks on individuals which I 
would recall at some cost, and would not willingly see repeated in 
these volumes. Having conceded thus much, however, I may 
express my surprise that this particular sin should have been 
visited upon we, at a distance of three thousand miles, when the 
reviewer's own literary fame rests on the more aggravated instance 
of a book of personalities, published under the very noses of the 
persons described. Those of my Letters which date from Eng- 
land were written within three or four months of my first arrival 
in this country. Fortunate in my introductions, almost embar- 
rassed with kindness, and, from advantages of comparison, gained 



PREFACE. xi 



by long travel, qualified to appreciate keenly the delights of 
English society, I was little disposed to find fault. Everything 
pleased me. Yet in one instance — one single instance — I 
indulged myself in stricture upon individual character, and I 
repeat it in this work, sure that there will be but one person in 
the world of letters who will not read it with approbation — the 
editor of the Quarterly himself. It was expressed at the time 
with no personal feeling, for I had never seen the individual con- 
cerned, and my name had probably never reached his ears. I 
but repeated what I had said a thousand times, and never without 
an indignant echo to its truth — an opinion formed from the 
most dispassionate perusal of his writings — that the editor of that 
Review was the most unprincipled critic of his age. Aside from 
its flagrant literary injustice, we owe to the Quarterly, it is well 
known, every spark of ill-feeling that has been kept alive between 
England and America for the last twenty years. The sneers, 
the opprobrious epithets of this bravo in literature, have been 
received in a country where the machinery of reviewing was not 
understood, as the voice of the English people, and an animosity 
for which there was no other reason, has been thus periodically 
fed and exasperated. I conceive it to be my duty as a literary 
man — I know it is my duty as an American — to lose no opportu- 
nity of setting my heel on the head of this reptile of criticism." 

The following is part of an article, written by myself, on the 
subject of personalities, for a periodical in New York : 

" There is no question, I believe, that pictures of living society, 



x ii PREFACE. 



where society is in very high perfection, and of living persons, 
where they are " persons of mark," are both interesting to our- 
selves, and valuable to posterity. What would we not give for a 
description of a dinner with Shakspeare and Ben Jonson — of a 
dance with the Maids of Queen Elizabeth — of a chat with Milton 
in a morning call ? We should say the man was a churl, who, 
when he had the power, should have refused to ' leave the world 
a copy' of such precious hours. Posterity will decide who are 
the great of our time — but they are at least among those I have 
heard talk, and have described and quoted, and who would read 
without interest, a hundred years hence, a character of the 
second Virgin Queen, caught as it was uttered in a ball-room of 
her time ? or a description of her loveliest Maid of Honor, by 
one who had stood opposite her in a dance, and wrote it before 
he slept ? or a conversation with Moore or Bulwer ? — when the 
Queen and her fairest maid, and Moore and Bulwer have had 
their splendid funerals, and are dust, like Elizabeth and Shaks- 
peare ? 

a The harm, if harm there be in such sketches, is in the spirit 
in which they are done. If they are ill-natured or untrue, or if 
the author says aught to injure the feelings of those who have 
admitted him to their confidence or hospitality, he is to blame, 
and it is easy, since he publishes while his subjects are living, to 
correct his misrepresentations, and to visit upon him his infideli- 
ties of friendship. 

tl But (while I think of it), perhaps some fault-finder will be 



PREFACE. xiii 



pleased to tell me, why this is so much deeper a sin in me than in 
all other travellers. Has Basil Hall any hesitation in describing 
a dinner party in the United States, and recording the conversa- 
tion at table ? Does Miss Martineau stick at publishing the 
portrait of a distinguished American, and faithfully recording all 
he says in a confidential tete-a-tete ? Have Captain Hamilton 
and Prince Pukler, Von Raumer and Captain Marryat, any 
scruples whatever about putting down anything they hear that is 
worth the trouble, or of describing any scene, private or public, 
which would tell in their book, or illustrate a national peculiarity ? 
What would their books be without this class of subjects ? What 
would any book of travels be, leaving out everybody the author 
saw, and all he heard ? Not that I justify all these authors have 
done in this way, for I honestly think they have stepped over tie 
line, which I have but trod close upon. 

Surely it is the abuse, and not the use of information thus 
acquired, that makes the offence. 

The most formal, unqualified, and severe condemnation 
recorded against my Pencillings, however, is that of the renowned 
Editor of the Quarterly, and to show the publio the immaculate 
purity of the forge where this long-echoed thunder is manufac- 
tured, I will quote a passage or two from a book of the same 
description, by the Editor of the Quarterly himself. ' Peter's 
Letters to his Kinsfolk,' by Mr. Lockhart, are three volumes 
exclusively filled with portraits of persons, living at the time it 
was written in Scotland, their conversation with the author, their 



xiv PREFACE. 



manners, their private histories, etc., etc. In one of the letters 
upon the l Society of Edinburgh,' is the following delicate pas- 



" i Even you, my dear Lady Johnes, are a perfect history in 
every branch of knowledge. I remember, only the last time I saw 
you, you were praising with all your might the legs of Col. B , 



those flimsy, worthless things that look as if they were bandaged 
with linen rollers from the heel to the knee. You may say what 
you will, but I still assert, and I will prove it if you please by 
pen and pencil, that, with one pair of exceptions, the best legs in 

Cardigan are Mrs. P 's. As for Miss 3—, — D 's, I think 

they are frightful.' * * * * 

" Two pages farther on he says : — 

" ' As for myself, I assure you that ever since I spent a week 

at Lady L 's and saw those great fat girls of hers, waltzing 

every night with that odious Be B , I can not endure the 

very name of the thing. ' 

" I quote from the second edition of these letters, by which it 
appears that even these are moderated passages. A note to the 
first of the above quotations runs as follows : 

" i A great part of this letter is omitted in the Second Edition 
in consequence of the displeasure its publication gave to certain 
ladies in Cardiganshire. As for the gentleman who chose to take 
what I said of him in so much dudgeon, he will observe, that I 
have allowed what I said to remain in statu quo, which I certainly 



PREFACE. xv 



should not have done, had he expressed his resentment in a 
proper manner.' 

" So well are these unfortunate persons' names known by those 
who read the book in England, that in the copy which I have 
from a circulating library, they are all filled out in pencil. And 
I would here beg the reader to remark that these are private 
individuals, compelled by no literary or official distinction to 
come out from their privacy and figure in print, and in this, if 
not in the taste and quality of my descriptions, I claim a fairer 
escutcheon than my self-elected judge — for where is a person's 
name recorded in my letters who is not either by tenure of 
public office, or literary, or political distinction, a theme of daily 
newspaper comment, and of course fair game for the traveller. 

u I must give one more extract from Mr. Lockhart's book, an 
account of a dinner with a private merchant of Glasgow. 

" ' I should have told you before, that I had another visiter 

early in the morning, besides Mr. H. This was a Mr. P , a 

respectable merchant of the place, also an acquaintance of my 

friend W . He came before. H , and after professing 

himself very sorry that his avocations would not permit him to 
devote his forenoon to my service, he made me promise to dine 
with him. * * My friend soon joined me, and observing from 
the appearance of my countenance that I was contemplating the 
scene with some disgust,' (the Glasgow Exchange) "My good 
fellow,' said he, i you are just like every other well-educated 
stranger that comes into this town ; you can not endure the first 



X vi PREFACE. 



sight of us mercantile whelps. Do not, however, be alarmed ; I 
will not introduce you to any of these cattle at dinner. No, sir ! 
You must know that there are a few men of refinement and polite 
information in this city. I have warned two or three of these 
rara aves, and depend upon it, you shall have a very snug dayh 
work.'' So saying he took my arm, and observing that five was 
just on the chap y hurried me through several streets and lanes 

till we arrived in the , where his house is situated. His 

wife was, I perceived, quite the fine lady, and, withal, a little of 
the blue stocking^ Hearing that I had just come from Edinburgh, 
she remarked that Glasgow would be seen to much more disad- 
vantage after that elegant city. ' Indeed,' said she, c a person 
of taste, must, of course, find many disagreeables connected with 

a residence in such a town as this ; but Mr. P 's business 

renders the thing necessary for the present, and one can not 
make a silk purse of a sow's ear — he, he, he !' 'Another lady of 
the company, carried this affectation still farther ; she pretended 
to be quite ignorant of Glasgow and its inhabitants, although she 
had lived among them the greater part of her life, and, by the 
by, seemed no chicken. I was afterward told by my friend Mr. 

H , that this damsel had in reality sojourned a winter or two 

in Edinburgh, in the capacity of lick-spittle or toad-eat&r to a 
lady of quality, to whom she had rendered herself amusing by a 
malicious tongue ; and that during this short absence, she had 
embraced the opportunity of utterly forgetting everything about 
the West country. 



PREFACE. xv ii 



u l The dinner was excellent, although calculated apparently 
for forty people rather than sixteen, which last number sat down. 
While the ladies remained in the room, there was such a noise 
and racket of coarse mirth, ill restrained by a few airs of sickly 
sentiment on the part of the hostess, that I really could neither 
attend to the wine nor the dessert ; but after a little time a very 
broad hint from a fat Falstaff, near the foot of the table, appar- 
ently quite a privileged character, thank Heaven ! sent the ladies 
out of the room. The moment after which blessed consumma- 
tion, the butler and footman entered, as if by instinct, the one 
with a huge punch bowl, the other with, fyc.' M 

I do thank Heaven that there is no parallel in my own let- 
ters to either of these three extracts. It is a thing of course 
that there is not. They are violations of hospitality, social con- 
fidence, and delicacy, of which even my abusers will allow me 
incapable. Yet this man accuses me of all these things, and so 
runs criticism ! 

And to this I add (to conclude this long Preface) some extracts 
from a careful review of the work in the North American : — 

" ' Pencillings by the Way,' is a very spirited book. The 
letters out of which it is constructed, were written originally for 
the New- York ' Mirror,' and were not intended for distinct pub- 
lication. From this circumstance, the author indulged in a free- 
dom of personal detail, which we must say is wholly unjustifiable, 
and we have no wish to defend it. This book does not pretend to 
contain any profound observations or discussions on national 



xviii PREFACE. 



character, political condition, literature, or even art. It would 
be obviously impossible to carry any one of these topics 
thoroughly out, without spending vastly more time and labor upon 
it than a rambling poet is likely to have the inclination to do. In 
fact, there are very few men, who are qualified, by the nature of 
their previous studies, to do this with any degree of edification to 
their readers. But a man of general intellectual culture, espe- 
cially if he have the poetical imagination superadded, may give 
us rapid sketches of other countries, which will both entertain 
and instruct us. Now this book is precisely such a one as we 
have here indicated. The author travelled through Europe, 
mingling largely in society, and visited whatever scenes were 
interesting to him as an American, a scholar, and a poet. The 
impressions which these scenes made upon his mind, are described 
in these volumes ; and we must say, we have rarely fallen in with 
a book of a more sprightly character, a more elegant and grace- 
ful style, and full of more lively descriptions. The delineations 
of manners are executed with great tact ; and the shifting 
pictures of natural scenery pass before us as we read, exciting a 
never-ceasing interest. As to the personalities which have 
excited the wrath of British critics, we have, as we said before, 
no wish to defend them ; but a few words upon the tone, temper, 
and motives, of those gentlemen, in their dealing with our author, 
will not, perhaps, be considered inappropriate. 

u It is a notorious fact, that British criticism, for many years 
past, has been, to a great extent, free from all the restraints of a 



PREFACE. x i x 



regard to literary truth. Assuming the political creed of an 
author, it would be a very easy thing to predict the sort of criti- 
cism his writings would meet with, in any or all of the leading 
periodicals of the kingdom. This tendency has been carried so 
far, that even discussions of points in ancient classical literature 
have been shaped and colored by it. Thus, Aristophanes' com- 
edies are turned against modern democracy, and Pindar, the 
Theban Eagle, has been unceremoniously classed with British 
Tories, by the London Quarterly. Instead of inquiring ' What 
is the author's object ? How far has he accomplished it ? How 
far is that object worthy of approbation ?' — three questions that 
are essential to all just criticism ; the questions put by English 
Reviewers are substantially l What party does he belong to ? Is 
he a Whig, Tory, Radical, or is he an American ?■' And the 
sentence in such cases depends on the answer to them. Even 
where British criticism is favorable to an American author, its 
tone is likely to be haughty and insulting ; like the language of a 
condescending city gentleman toward some country cousin, whom 
he is kind enough to honor with his patronage. 

" Now, to critics of this sort, Mr. Willis was a tempting mark. 
No one can for a moment believe that the London Quarterly, 
Frazer's Magazine, and Captain Marryat's monthly, are honest in 
the language they hold toward Mr. Willis. Motives, wide 
enough from a love of truth, guided the conduct of these journals. 
The editor of the London Quarterly, it is well known, is the 
author of \ Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,' a work full of per- 



xx PREFACE. 



sonalities, ten times more objectionable than anything to be found 
in the ' Pencillings.' Yet this same editor did not blush to 
write and print a long and most abusive tirade upon the American 
traveller, for doing what he had himself done to a much greater 
and more reprehensible extent ; and, to cap the climax of incon- 
sistency, republished in his journal the very personalities, names 
and all, which had so shocked his delicate sensibilities. It is 
much more likely that a disrespectful notice of the London 
Quarterly and its editor, in these ' Pencillings,' was the source 
from which this bitterness flowed, than that any sense of literary 
justice dictated the harsh review. Another furious attack on 
Mr. Willis's book appeared in the monthly journal, under the 
editorial management of Captain Marryat, the author of a series 
of very popular sea novels. Whoever was the author of that 
article, ought to be held disgraced in the opinions of all honora- 
ble men. It is the most extraordinary tissue of insolence and 
coarseness, with one exception, that we have ever seen, in any 
periodical which pretended to respectability of literary character. 
It carries its grossness to the intolerable length of attacking the 
private character of Mr. Willis, and throwing out foolish sneers 
about his birth and parentage. It is this article which led to the 
well-known correspondence, between the American Poet and the 
British Captain, ending in a hostile meeting. It is to be regret- 
ted that Mr. Willis should so far forget the principles of his New 
England education, as to participate in a duel. We regard the 
practice with horror ; we believe it not only wicked, but absurd. 



PREFACE 



xxi 



We can not possibly see how, Mr. Willis's tarnished fame could 
be brightened by the superfluous work of putting an additional 
quantity of lead into the gallant captain. But there is, perhaps, 
no disputing about tastes ; and, bad as we think the whole affair 
was, no candid man can read the correspondence without feeling 
that Mr. Willis's part of it, is infinitely superior to the captain's, 
in style, sense, dignity of feeling, and manly honor. 

" But, to return to the work from which we have been partially 
drawn aside. Its merits in point of style are unquestionable. 
It is written in a simple, vigorous, and highly descriptive form of 
English, and rivets the reader's attention throughout. There 
are passages in it of graphic, eloquence, which it would be diffi- 
cult to surpass from the writings of any other tourist, whatever. 
The topics our author selects, are, as has been already stated, 
not those which require long and careful study to appreciate and 
discuss ; they are such as the poetic eye would naturally dwell 
upon, and a poetic hand rapidly delineate, in a cursory survey of 
foreign lands. Occasionally, we think, Mr. Willis enters too 
minutely into the details of the horrible. Some of his descrip- 
tions of the cholera, and the pictures he gives us of the cata- 
combs of the dead, are ghastly. But the manners of society he 
draws with admirable tact ; and personal peculiarities of distin- 
guished men, he renders with a most life-like vivacity. Many of 
his descriptions of natural scenery are more like pictures, than 
sketches in words. The description of the Bay of Naples will 
occur as a good example. 



xxii PREFACE. 



" It would be impossible to point out, with any degree of par- 
ticularity, the many passages in this book whose beauty deserves 
attention. But it may be remarked in general, that the greater 
part of the first volume is not so fresh and various, and animated, 
as the second. This we suppose arises partly from the fact that 
France and Italy have long been beaten ground. 

" The last part of the book is a statement of the author's 
observations upon English life and society ; and it is this portion, 
which the English critics affect to be so deeply offended with. 
The most objectionable passage in this is the account of a dinner 
at Lady Blessington's. Unquestionably Mr. Moore's remarks 
about Mr. O'Connell ought not to have been reported, consider- 
ing the time when, and the place where, they were uttered ; 
though they contain nothing new about the great Agitator, the 
secrets disclosed being well known to some millions of people 
who interest themselves in British politics, and read the British 
newspapers. We close our remarks on this work by referring 
our readers to a capital scene on board a Scotch steamboat, and 
a breakfast at Professor Wilson's, the famous editor of Black- 
wood, both in the second volume, which we regret our inability 
to quote." 

" Every impartial reader must confess, that for so young a 
man, Mr. Willis has done much to promote the reputation of 
American literature. His position at present is surrounded with 
every incentive to a noble ambition. With youth and health to 
bustain him under labor; with much knowledge of the world 



PREFACE. xxiu 



acquired by travel and observation, to draw upon ; with a mature 
style, and a hand practised in various forms of composition, Mr. 
Willis's genius ought to take a wider and higher range than it 
has ever done before. We trust we shall meet him again, ere 
long, in the paths of literature ; and we trust that he will take it 
kindly, if we express the hope, that he will lay aside those ten- 
dencies to exaggeration, and to an unhealthy tone of sentiment, 
which mar the beauty of some of his otherwise most agreeable 
books." 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER I. 

PAGE 

Getting under Way— The Gulf Stream— Aspect of the Ocean— Formation of a "Wave 
—Sea Gems— The Second Mate, 11 

- 

LETTER II. 

A Dog at Sea— Dining, with a High Sea— Sea Birds— Tandem of Whales— Speaking a 
Man-of-War— Havre, 13 



LETTER ni. 

Havre— French Bed-room — The Cooking— Chance Impressions, ... 25 

LETTER IV. 

Pleasant Companion— Normandy— Eouen— Eden of Cultivation— St. Denis — Entrance 
to Paris— Lodgings— Walk of Discovery — Palais Eoyal, 80 



LETTER V. 

Gallery of the Louvre— Greenough — Feeling as a Foreigner — Solitude in the Louvre 
— Louis Philippe — The Poles— Napoleon IT 40 



xxvi CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

LETTER VI. 



Taglioni— French Acting— French Applause— Leontine Fay, 



LETTER VII. 

Lelewell — Pero La Chaise - Pauvre Marie — Versailles — The Trianons — Josephine's 
Boudoir — Time and Money at Paris— "Wives and Fuel — One Price Shops, . . 53 

LETTER VIII. 

Mr. Cooper— Mr. Greenough— Fighting Animals— The Dog Pit— Fighting Donkey — 
Sporting Englishmen, 63 

LETTER IX. 

Malibrau— Paris at a Late Hour— Glass Gallery— Cloud and Sunshine — General Ro- 
marino— Parisian Students— Tumult Ended, 70 

LETTER X. 

French Children— Eoyal Equipages— French Driving— City Eiding— Parisian Pic- 
turesque—Beggar's Deception— Genteel Beggars, 78 



LETTER XL 

Madame Mars— Franklin's House — Ball for the Poor — Theatrical Splendor— Louis 
Philippe — Duke of Orleans — Young Queen of Portugal — Don Pedro — Close of the 
Ball, , . . . . 86 



LETTER XII. 

Champ Elysees— Louis Philippe— Literary Dinner— Bowring and others— The Poles— 
Dr. TTowe's Mission, 96 



LETTER XIII. 

Club Gambling House— Frascati's— Female Gambler, 103 



CONTENTS. xxv ii 



PAGE 

LETTER XIV. 

Tuileries— Men of Mark — Cooper and Morse— Contradictions — Dinner Honr— How to 
Dine Well, 107 



LETTER XV. 

The Emperor— Turenne — Lady Officer— G ambling Quarrel— Curious Antagonists — In- 
fluence of Paris, 114 

LETTER XVI. 

Cholera Gaieties— Cholera Patient— Morning in Paris— Cholera Hospital— New Pa- 
tient — Physician's Indifference — Punch Eeniedy — Dead Eoom — Non-Contagion, 121 



LETTER XVII. 

Unexpected Challenge— Court Presentation— Louis Philippe— Eoyal Family at Tea- 
Countess Guiccioli— Madri Gras— Bal Costume— Public Masks— Lady Cavalier — 
Ball at the Palace— Duke of Orleans— Dr. Bowring— Celebrated Men— Glass Ve- 
randah 131 



LETTER XVIII. 

Cholera — Social Tea Party — Eecipe for Caution — Baths and Happiness, . . . 146 

LETTER XIX. 

Bois de Boulogne — Guiccioli— Sismondi — Cooper, 151 

LETTER XX. 

Friend of Lady^ Morgan— Dr. Spurzheim — Cast-Taking— De Potter— David the 
Sculptor, 156 

LETTER XXI. 

Attractions of Paris— Mr. Cooper— Mr. Eives, ........ 162 



xxviii CONTENTS. 



PAOB 

LETTER XXII. 

Chalons — Sens— Auxerre — St Bris — Three Views in One — Chalons, . . . 166 



LETTER XXIII. 

Boat on the Saone— Scenery above Lyons— Lyons— Churches at Lyons— Monastery, 178 

LETTER XXIV. 

Travelling Party — Breakfast on the Road— Localities of Antiquity— Picturesque Cha- 
teau—French Patois, 179 

LETTER XXV. 

Aries — The Cathedral— Marseilles — Parting with Companions— Pass of Ollioules — 
Toulon — Antibes— Coast of Mediterranean— Forced to Return— Lazaretto— Absurd 
Hindrances— Fear of Contagion — Sleep out of Doors — Lazaretto Occupations- 
Delicious Sunday— New Arrivals— Companions VEnd of Quarantine, . . 185 

LETTER XXVI. 

Nice— Funeral of an Arch-Duchess — Nice to Genoa — Views— Entrance to Genoa- 
Genoa 203 



LETTER XXVII. 

The Yenus— The Fornarina— A Coquette and the Arts — A Festa— Ascension Day — 
The Cascine— Madame Catalani, , 211 



LETTER XXVIII. 

Titian's Bella — The Grand-Duchess — An Improvisatrice — Living in Florence — Lodg- 
ings at Florence — Expense of Living, . • . 219 

LETTER XXIX. 

Companions— Scenery of Romagna— Wives— Bologna, 226 



CONTENTS. xx i x 



PAGE 

LETTER XXX. 

Gallery at Bologna— A Guido — Churches — Confession-Chapel — Festa — Agreeable 
Manners, 231 



LETTER XXXI. 

Regatta— Venetian Sunset— Privileged Admission— Guillotining — Bridge of Sighe 
San Marc— The Nobleman Beggar, 



LETTER XXXII. 

An Evening in Venice— The Streets of Venice — The Kialto — Sunset from San Marc, 246 

LETTER XXXIII. 

Titian's Pictures— Last Day in Venice, 251 

LETTER XXXIV. 

Italian Civility— Juliet's Tomb— The Palace of the Capuletti— A Dinner, . . 254 

LETTER XXXV. 

Good and Ill-Breeding— Bridal Party, 259 

LETTER XXXVI. 

Manner of Living — Originals of Novels — 111, 262 

LETTER XXXVII. 

The Duke of Lucca— Modena— The Palace— Bologna— Venice Again— Its Splendor, 266 

LETTER XXXVIII. 

Armenian Island— Agreeable Monk— Insane Hospital— Insane Patients— The Lagune 
—State Galley— Instruments of Torture, 273 



XXX CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LETTER XXXIX. 

Venice at Evening— The Patriotism of a Noble— Church of St Antony— Petrarch's 
Cottage and Tomb— Petrarch's Koom, 281 



LETTER XL. 

Cultivation of the Fields— The Vintage— Malibran in Gazza Ladra— Gallery of the 
Lambaccari, 287 



LETTER XLI. 

Sienna — Catholic Devotion— Acquapendente — Lake Bolsena— Vintage Festa — Monte- 
Cimino— First Sight of Rome— Baccano 292 



LETTER XLII. 

St Peters— The Apollo Belvidere— Raphael's Transfiguration— The Pantheon — The 
Forum, SOJ 



LETTER XLIII. 

The Falls of Tivoli— Villa of Adrian— A Ramble by Moonlight— The Cloaca 
Maxima, 307 



LETTER XLIV. 

The Last Judgment— The Music— Gregory the Sixteenth, 812 

LETTER XLV. 

Byron's Statue — The Borghese Palace— Society of Rome, . • 816 

LETTER XLVL 

The Climate — Falls of Terni— The Clitumnus — A Lesson not Lost — Thrasimeno— 
Florence — Florentine Women — Need of au Ambassador, 320 



CONTENTS. xxx i 



PAGE 

LETTER XLVII. 



Chat iu the Ante-Chamber— Love in High Life— Ball at the Palazzo Pitti— The Grand 
Duke— An Italian Beauty — An English Beauty, 



LETTER XLVIII. 

Oxen of Italy— Vallombrosa— A Convent Dinner— Yespers at Vallombrosa— The 
Monk's Estimate of Women— Milton's Boom— Florence, 



LETTER XLIX. 

The House of Michael Angelo— Fiesole— San Miniato— Christmas Eve— Amusing 
Scenes in Church, 344 



LETTER L. 

Penitential Processions— The Carlist Refugees— The Miracle of Eain— The Miraculous 
Picture— Giovanni Di Bologna— Andrea Del Sarto, . .... 350 



LETTER LI. 

The Entertainments of Florence— A Peasant Beauty— The Morality of Society— Tho 
Italian Cavalier— The Features of Society, 357 



LETTER LII. 

Artists and the French Academy— Beautiful Scenery— Sacred "Woods of Bolsena, . 363 

LETTER LIII. 

The Virtuoso of Viterbo— Bobberies— Kome as Fancied— Rome as Found, . . 367 

LETTER LIV. 

The Fountain of Egeria— The Pontine Marshes— Mola— The Falerniau Hills— The 
Doctor of St Agatha— The Queen of Naples, 372 



XXxii CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LETTER LV. 

St. Peter's— The Fountains— The Obelisk— The Forum— Its Memories— The Cenci— 
Claude's Pictures— Fancies Bealized— The iast of the Dorias— A Picture by Leonardo 
Da Vinci — Palace of the Cesars — An Hour on the Palatine, 379 



LETTER LVI. 

Eoman Eyes versus Feet— Yespors at Santa Trinita— Eoman Baths— Baths of Titus- 
Shelley's Haunt, . 390 

LETTER LVII. 

The Tomb of the Scipios— The Early Christians— Tho Tomb of Metella— Fountain of 
Egeria — Changed Aspect of Eome, 896 

LETTER LVLTL 

Palm Sunday— A Crowd— The Miserere— A Judas— The "Washing of Feet— The 
Dinner, 402 

LETTER LLX. 

The Protestant Cemetery— Shelley's Grave— Beauty of the Place— Keats— Dr. Bell, 409 

LETTER LX. 

Audience with the Pope— Humility and Pride in Contrast— Tho Miserere at St. 
Peter's — Italian Moonlight— Dancing at the Coliseum, 415 

LETTER LXI. 

Easter Sunday— The Pope's Blessing— niumination of St. Peter's— Florentine Socia- 
bility—A Marriage of Convenience, 421 

LETTER LXII. 

The Correggio— Austrians in Italy— The Cathedral at Milan— Guercino's Hagar— 
Milanese Coffee, 427 



CONTENTS. xxxiii 



PAGE 

LETTER LXIII. 

Still in Italy— Isola Bella— Ascent of the Simplon— Farewell to Italy— An American 
— Descent of the Simplon, 433 



LETTER LXIV. 

The Cretins— The Goitre— First Sight of Lake Leman— Mont Blanc— June in Geneva 
— The Winkelreid, 440 

LETTER LXV. 

American and Genevese Steamers — Lilies of the Valley — A Frenchman's Apology— 
Genevese Women — Voltaire's Room, 446 



LETTER LXVL 

The Jura— Arrival at Morez— Lost my Temper— National Characteristics— Politeness 
versus Comfort, .*.... 



LETTER LXVII. 

Lafayette's Funeral Crossing the Channel — An English Inn— Mail Coaches and 
Horses— A Gentleman Driver — A Subject for Madame Trollope, 



LETTER LXVIII. 

First Dinner in London— The King's Birth-day — A Handsome Street— Introduction 
to Lady Bleesington — A Chat about Buhver— The DTsraeli's — Contrast of Criticism 
—Countess Guiccioli— Lady Blessington — An Apology, 465 



LETTER LXIX. 

An Evening at Lady Blessington's— Fonblanc— Tribute to American Authors — A 
Sketch of Buhver— Bulwer's Conversation— An Author his own Critic, . . 476 



xxxiv CONTENTS. 



LETTER LXX. 

Ascot Races— Handsome Men — The Princess Victoria— Charles Lamb— Mary Lamb 
— Lamb's Conversation— The Breakfast at Fault, 488 

LETTER LXXI. 

A Dinner at Lady Blessington's— DTsraeli, the Younger— The Author of Vathek— 
Mr. Beckford'a Whims— Irish Patriotism — The Effect of Eloquence, . . . 491 

LETTER LXXII. 

The Opera House— What Books will pay for— English Beauty — A Belle's Criticism on 
Socioty— Celebrities, 493 

LETTER LXXIIL 

Breakfast with Proctor— A Story of Hazlitt — Procter as a Poet— Impressions of the 
Man, 504 



LETTER LXXIV. 

Moore's Dread of Criticism — Moore's Love of Rank — A generous Offer nobly Eefused 
—A Sacrifice to Jupiter— The Election of Speaker— Miss Pardoe— Prices of Books, 509 



LETTER LXXV. 

Dinner at Lady Blessington's— Scott — The Italians— Scott's Mode of Living— O'Connell 
— Grattan— Moore's Manner of Talking— Lady Blessington's Tact— Moore's Singing 
— A Curious Incident— The Maid Metamorphosed .517 



PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. 



LETTEE I 



At Sea. — I have emerged from my berth this morning for the 
first time since we left the Capes. "We have been running six or 
seven days before a strong northwest gale, which, by the scuds in 
the sky, is not yet blown out, and my head and hand, as you will 
see by my penmanship, are anything but at rights. If you have 
ever plunged about in a cold rain-storm at sea for seven succes- 
sive days, you can imagine how I have amused myself. 

I wrote to you after my pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington. 
It was almost the only object of natural or historical interest in 
our own country that I had not visited, and that seen, I made all 
haste back to embark, in pursuance of my plans of travel, for 
Europe. At Philadelphia I found a first-rate merchant-brig, 
the Pacific, on the eve of sailing for Havre. She was nearly 
new, and had a French captain, and no passengers — three very 
essentia] circumstances to my taste — and I took a berth in her 



12 GETTING UNDER WAY. 



without hesitation. The next day she fell down the river, and 
on the succeeding morning I followed her with the captain in the 
steamboat. 

Some ten or fifteen vessels, bound on different voyages, lay in 
the roads waiting for the pilot boat ; and, as she came down the 
river, they all weighed anchor together and we got under way. 
It was a beautiful sight — so many sail in close company under a 
smart breeze, and I stood on the quarter-deck and watched them 
in a mood of mingled happiness and sadness till we reached the 
Capes. There was much to elevate and much to depress me. 
The dream of my lifetime was about to be realized. I was 
bound to France ; and those fair Italian cities, with their world of 
association and interest were within the limit of a voyage ; and 
all that one looks to for happiness in change of scene, and all 
that I had been passionately wishing and imagining since I could 
dream a day-dream or read a book, was before me with a visible 
certainty ; but my home was receding rapidly, perhaps for years, 
and the chances of death and adversity in my absence crowded 
upon my mind — and I had left friends — (many — many — as dear 
to me, any one of them, as the whole sum of my coming enjoy- 
ment), whom a thousand possible accidents might remove or 
estrange ; and I scarce knew whether I was more happy or sad. 

We made Cape Henlopen about sundown, and all shortened 
sail and came to. The little boat passed from one to another, 
taking off the pilots, and in a few minutes every sail was spread 
again, and away they went with a dashing breeze, some on one 
course some on another, leaving us in less than an hour, appa- 
rently alone on the sea. By this time the clouds had grown 
black, the wind had strengthened into a gale, with fits of rain ; 
and as the order was given to " close-reef the top-sails," I took a 



THE GULF STREAM. 13 



last look at Cape ITenlopen, just visible in the far edge of the 
horizon, and went below. 

Oct. 18. — It is a day to make one in love with life. The 
remains of the long storm, before which we have been driven for 
a week, lie, in white, turreted masses around the horizon, the 
sky overhead is spotlessly blue, the sun is warm, the wind steady 
and fresh, but soft as a child's breath, and the sea — I must 
sketch it to you more elaborately. We are in the Gulf Stream. 
The water here as you know, even to the cold banks of New- 
foundland, is always blood warm, and the temperature of the air 
mild at all seasons, and, just now, like a south wind on land in 
June. Hundreds of sea birds are sailing around us — the spongy 
sea-weeds, washed from the West Indian rocks, a thousand miles 
away in the southern latitudes, float by in large masses — the 
sailors, barefoot and bareheaded, are scattered over the rigging, 
doing "fair-weather work" — and just in the edge of the horizon, 
hidden by every swell, stand two vessels with all sail spread, 
making, with the first fair wind they have had for many days, 
for America. 

This is the first day that I have been able to be long enough on 
deck to study the sea. Even were it not, however, there has 
been a constant and chilly rain which would have prevented me 
from enjoying its grandeur, so that I am reconciled to my 
unusually severe sickness. I came on deck this morning and 
looked around, and for an hour or two I could scarce realize that 
it was not a dream. Much as I had watched the sea from our 
bold promontory at Nahant, and well as I thought I knew its 
character in storms and calms, the scene which was before me 
surprized and bewildered me utterly. At the first glance, we 
were just in the gorge of the sea ; and, looking over the leeward 



14 ASPECT OF THE OCEAN. 



quarter, I saw, stretching up from the keel, what I can only 
describe as a hill of dazzling blue, thirty or forty feet in real alti- 
tude, but sloped so far away that the white crest seemed to me a 
cloud, and the space between a sky of the most wonderful beauty 
and brightness. A moment more, and the crest burst over with 
a splendid volume of foam ; the sun struck through the thinner 
part of the swell in a line of vivid emerald, and the whole mass 
swept under us, the brig rising and riding on the summit with the 
buoyancy and grace of a bird. 

The single view of the ocean which I got at that moment, will 
be impressed upon my mind for ever. Nothing that I ever saw 
on land at all compares with it for splendor. No sunset, no 
lake scene of hill and water, no fall, not even Niagara, no glen 
or mountain gap ever approached it. The waves had had no 
time to " knock down," as the sailors phrase it, and it was a 
storm at sea without the hurricane and rain. I looked off to the 
horizon, and the long majestic swells were heaving into the sky 
upon its distant limit, and between it and my eye lay a radius of 
twelve miles, an immense plain flashing with green and blue and 
white, and changing place and color so rapidly as to be almost 
painful to the sight. I stood holding by the tafferel an hour, 
gazing on it with a childish delight and wonder. The spray had 
broken over me repeatedly, and, as we shipped half a sea at the 
scuppers at every roll, I was standing half the time up to the 
knees in water ; but the warm wind on my forehead, after a 
week's confinement to my berth, and the excessive beauty lavished 
upon my sight, were so delicious, that I forgot all, and it was 
only in compliance > with the captain's repeated suggestion that I 
changed my position. 

I mounted the quarter-deck, and, pulling off my shoes, like a 



FORMATION OF A WAVE. ] 5 



schoolboy, sat over the leeward rails, and, with my feet dipping 
into the warm sea at every lurch, gazed at the glorious show for 
hours. I do not hesitate to say that the formation, progress, and 
final burst of a sea-wave, in a bright sun, are the most gorgeously 
beautiful sight under heaven. I must describe it like a jeweller 
to you, or I can never convey my impressions. 

First of all, a quarter of a mile away to windward, your eye is 
caught by an uncommonly high wave, rushing right upon your 
track, and heaping up slowly and constantly as it comes, as if 
some huge animal were ploughing his path steadily and powerfully 
beneath the surface. Its " ground," as a painter would say, is 
of a deep indigo, clear and smooth as enamel, its front curved 
inward, like a shell, and turned over at the summit with a crest 
of foam, flashing and changing perpetually in the sunshine, like 
the sudden outburst of a million of " unsunned diamonds ;" and, 
right through its bosom, as the sea falls off, or the angle of 
refraction changes, there runs a shifting band of the most vivid 
green, that you would take to have been the cestus of Venus, as 
she rose from the sea, it is so supernaturally translucent and 
beautiful. As it nears you, it looks in shape like the prow of 
Cleopatra's barge, as they paint it in the old pictures ; but its 
colors, and the grace and majesty of its march, and its murmur 
(like the low tones of an organ, deep and full, and, to my 
ear, ten times as articulate and solemn), almost startle you into 
the belief that it is a sentient being, risen glorious and breathing 
from the ocean. As it reaches the ship, she rises gradually, for 
there is apparently an under-wave driven before it, which pre- 
pares her for its power ; and as it touches the quarter, the whole 
magnificent wall breaks down beneath you with a deafening surge, 
and a volume of foam issues from its bosom, green and blue and 



16 SEA GEMS. 



white, as if it had been a mighty casket in which the whole 
wealth of the sea, crysoprase, and emerald, and brilliant spars, 
had been heaped and lavished at a throw. This is the " tenth 
wave," and, for four or five minutes, the sea will be smooth about 
you, and the sparkling and dying foam falls into the wake, and 
may be seen like a white path, stretching away over the swells 
behind, till you are tired of gazing at it, Then comes another 
from the same direction, and with the same shape and motion, 
and so on till the sun sets, or your eyes are blinded and your 
brain giddy with splendor. 

I am sure this language will seem exaggerated to you, but, 
upon the faith of a lonely man (the captain has turned in, and it 
is near midnight and a dead calm), it is a mere skeleton, a gold- 
smith's inventory, of the reality. I long ago learned that first 
lesson of a man of the world, " to be astonished at nothing," 
but the sea has overreached my philosophy — quite. I am 
changed to a mere child in my wonder. Be assured, no view of 
the ocean from land can give you a shadow of an idea of it. 
Within even the outermost Capes, the swell is broken, and the 
color of the water in soundings is essentially different — more dull 
and earthy. Go to the mineral cabinets of Cambridge or New 
Haven, and look at the Jluor spars, and the turquoises, and the 
clearer specimens of crysoprase, and quartz, and diamond, and 
imagine them all polished and clear, and flung at your feet by 
millions in a noonday sun, and it may help your conceptions of 
the sea after a storm. You may " swim on bladders" at Nahant 
and Rockaway till you are gray, and be never the wiser. 

The " middle watch" is called, and the second mate, a fine 
rough old sailor, promoted from " the mast," is walking the 
quarter-deck, stopping his whistle now and then with a gruff 



THE SECOND MATE. 17 



" How do you head ?" or " keep her up, you lubber," to the man 
at the helm ; the " silver-shell" of a waning moon, is just visible 
through the dead lights over my shoulder (it has been up two 
hours, to we, and by the difference of our present merideans, is 
just rising now over a certain hill, and peeping softly in at an 
eastern window that I have watched many a time when its panes 
have been silvered by the same chaste alchymy), and so after a 
walk on the deck for an hour to look at the stars and watch the 

phosphorus in the wake, I think of , I'll get to mine own 

uneven pillow, and sleep too ! 



LETTER II. 

At Sea, October 20. — "We have had fine weather for pro- 
gress, so far, running with north and north-westerly winds from 
eight to ten knots an hour, and making, of course, over two 
hundred miles a day. The sea is still rough ; and though the 
brig is light laden and rides very buoyantly, these mounting 
waves break over us now and then with a tremendous surge, keep- 
ing the decks constantly wet, and putting me to many an uncom- 
fortable shiver. I have become reconciled, however, to much 
that I should have anticipated with no little horror. I can lie in 
my berth forty-eight hours, if the weather is chill or rainy, and 
amuse myself very well with talking bad French across the cabin 
to the captain, or laughing at the distresses of my friend and 
fellow-passenger, Turk (a fine setter dog, on his first voyage), or 
inventing some disguise for the peculiar flavor which that dismal 
cook gives to all his abominations , or, at worst, I can bury my 
head in my pillow, and brace from one side to the other against 
the swell, and enjoy my disturbed thoughts — all without losing 
my temper, or wishing that I had not undertaken the voyage. 

Poor Turk ! his philosophy is more severely tried. He has 
been bred a gentleman, and is amusingly exclusive. No assidui- 



A DOG AT SEA. 19 



ties can win him to take the least notice of the crew, and I soon 
discovered, that, when the captain and myself were below, he 
endured many a persecution. In an evil hour, a night or two 
since, I suffered his earnest appeals for freedom to work upon my 
feelings, and, releasing him from his chain under the windlass, I 
gave him the liberty of the cabin. He slept very quietly on the 
floor till about midnight, when the wind rose and the vessel began 
to roll very uncomfortably. With the first heavy lurch a couple 
of chairs went tumbling to leeward, and by the yelp of distress, 
Turk was somewhere in the way. He changed his position, and, 
with the next roll, the mate's trunk " brought away," and shoot- 
ing across the cabin, jammed him with such violence against the 
captain's state-room door, that he sprang howling to the deck, 
where the first thing tha£ met him was a washing sea, just taken 
in at midships, that kept him swimming above the hatches for 
five minutes. Half-drowned, and with a gallon of water in his 
long hair, he took again to the cabin, and making a desperate 
leap into the steward's berth, crouched down beside the sleeping 
Creole with a long whine of satisfaction. The water soon 
penetrated however, and with a " sacre /" and a blow that he will 
remember for the remainder of the voyage, the poor dog was 
again driven from the cabin, and I heard no more of him till 
morning. His decided preference for me has since touched my 
vanity, and I have taken him under my more special protection — 
a circumstance which costs me two quarrels a day at least, with 
the cook and steward. 

The only thing which forced a smile upon me during the first 
week of the passage was the achievement of dinner. In rough 
weather, it is as much as one person can do to keep his place at 
the table at all ; and to guard the dishes, bottles, and castors, 



20 DINING, WITH A HIGH SEA. 



from a general slide in the direction of the lurch, requires a 
sleight and coolness reserved only for a sailor. " Prenez garde /" 
shouts the captain, as the sea strikes, and in the twinkling of an 
eye, everything is seized and held up to wait for the other lurch, 
in attitudes which it would puzzle the pencil of Johnson to exag- 
gerate. With his plate of soup in one hand, and the larboard 
end of the tureen in the other, the claret bottle between his teeth, 
and the crook of his elbow caught around the mounting corner 
of the table, the captain maintains his seat upon the transom, 
and, with a look of the most grave concern, keeps a wary eye on 
the shifting level of his vermicelli ; the old weather-beaten mate, 
with the alacrity of a juggler, makes a long leg back to the cabin 
panels at the same moment, and with his breast against the table, 
takes his own plate and the castors, and one or two of the 
smaller dishes under his charge; and the steward, if he 
can keep his legs, looks out for the vegetables, or if he falls, 
makes as wide a lap as possible to intercept the volant articles in 
their descent. " Gentlemen that live at home at ease" forget to 
thank Providence for the blessings of a permanent level. 

Oct. 24. — We are on the Grand Bank, and surrounded by 
hundreds of sea-birds. I have been watching them nearly all 
day. Their performances on the wing are certainly the perfec- 
tion of grace and skill. With the steadiness of an eagle and the 
nice adroitness of a swallow, they wheel round in their constant 
circles with an arrowy swiftness, lifting their long tapering pinions 
scarce perceptibly, and mounting and falling as if by a mere act 
of volition, without the slightest apparent exertion of power. 
Their chief enjoyment seems to be to scoop through the deep 
hollows of the sea, and they do it so quickly that your eye can 
scarce follow them, just disturbing the polish of the smooth 



SEA BIRDS. 21 



crescent, and leaving a fine line of ripple from swell to swell, 
but never wetting a wing, or dipping their white breasts a feather 
too deep in the capricious and wind-driven surface. I feel a 
strange interest in these wild-hearted birds. There is something 
in this fearless instinct, leading them away from the protecting 
and pleasant land to make their home on this tossing and deso- 
late element, that moves both my admiration and my pity. I 
cannot comprehend it. It is unlike the self-caring instincts of 
the other families of Heaven's creatures. If I were half the 
Pythagorean that I used to be, I should believe they were souls 
in punishment — expiating some lifetime sin in this restless 
metempsychosis. 

Now and then a land-bird has flown on board, driven to sea 
probably by the gale ; and so fatigued as hardly to be able to rise 
again upon the wing. Yesterday morning a large curlew came 
struggling down the wind, and seemed to have just sufficient 
strength to reach the vessel. He attempted to alight on the 
main yard, but failed and dropped heavily into the long-boat, 
where he suffered himself to be taken without an attempt to 
escape. He must have been on the wing two or three days with- 
out food, for we were at least two hundred miles from land. His 
heart was throbbing hard through his ruffled feathers, and he 
held his head up with difficulty. He was passed aft ; but, while I 
was deliberating on the best means for resuscitating and fitting 
him to get on the wing again, the captain had taken him from 
me and handed him over to the cook, who had his head off before 
I could remember French enough to arrest him. I dreamed all 
that night of the man " that shot the albatross." The captain 
relieved my mind, however, by telling me that he had tried 
repeatedly to preserve them, and that they died invariably in a 



22 TANDEM OF WHALES. 



few hours. The least food, in their exhaused state, swells in their 
throats and suffocates them. Poor Curlew ! there was a tender- 
ness in one breast for him at least — a feeling I have the melan- 
choly satisfaction to know, fully reciprocated by the bird him- 
self — that seat of his affections having been allotted to me for 
my breakfast the morning succeeding his demise. 

Oct. 29. — We have a tandem of whales ahead. They have 
been playing about the ship an hour, and now are coursing away 
to the east, one after the other, in gallaat style. If we could 
only get them into traces now, how beautiful it would be to stand 
in the forctop and drive a degree or two, on a summer sea ! It 
would not be more wonderful, de novo, than the discovery of the 
lightning-rod, or navigation by steam ! And by the way, the 
sight of these huge creatures has made me realize, for the first 
time, the extent to which the sea has grown upon my mind dur- 
ing the voyage. I have seen one or two whales, exhibited in the 
docks, and it seemed to me always that they were monsters — out 
of proportion, entirely, to the range of the ocean. I had been 
accustomed to look out to the horizon from land (the radius, of 
course, as great as at sea), and, calculating the probable speed 
with which they would compass the intervening space, and the 
disturbance they would make in doing it, it appeared that in any 
considerable numbers, they would occupy more than their share 
of notice and sea-room. Now — after sailing five days, at two 
hundred miles a day, and not meeting a single vessel — it seems 
to me that a troop of a thousand might swim the sea a century 
and chance to be never crossed, so endlessly does this eternal 
horizon open and stretch away ! 

Oct. 30. — The day has passed more pleasantly than usual. 
The man at the helm cried " a sail," while we were at breakfast, 



SPEAKING A MAN-OF-WAR. 23 



and we gradually overtook a large ship, standing on the same 
course, with every sail set. "We were passing half a mile to lee- 
ward, when she put up her helm and ran down to us, hoisting the 
English flag. We raised the " star-spangled banner" in answer, 
and " hove to," and she came dashing along our quarter, heav- 
ing most majestically to the sea, till she was near enough to speak 
us without a trumpet. Her fore-deck was covered with sailors 
dressed all alike and very neatly, and around the gangway stood 
a large group of officers in uniform, the oldest of whom, a noble- 
looking man with gray hair, hailed and answered us. Several 
ladies stood back by the cabin door — passengers apparently. She 
was a man of war, sailing as a king's packet between Halifax and 
Falmouth, and had been out from the former port nineteen days. 
After the usual courtesies had passed, she bore away a little, and 
then kept on her course again, the two vessels in company at 
the distance of half a pistol shot. I rarely have seen a more 
beautiful sight. The fine effect of a ship under sail is entirely 
lost to one on board, and it is only at sea and under circum- 
stances like these, that it can be observed. The power of the 
swell, lifting such a huge body as lightly as an egg-shell on its 
bosom, and tossing it sometimes half out of the water without the 
slightest apparent effort, is astonishing. I sat on deck watching 
her with undiminished interest for hours. Apart from the spec- 
tacle, the feeling of companionship, meeting human beings in 
the middle of the ocean after so long a deprivation of society 
(five days without seeing a sail, and nearly three weeks unspoken 
from land), was delighful. Our brig was the faster sailer of the 
two, but our captain took in some of his canvas for company's 
sake ; and all the afternoon we heard her half-hour bells, and the 
boatswain's whistle, and the orders of the officers of the deck, 



24 HAVRE. 



and I could distinguish very well, with a glass, the expression of 
the faces watching our own really beautiful vessel as she skimmed 
over the water like a bird. We parted at sunset, the man-of- 
war making northerly for her port, and we stretching south for 
the coast of France. I watched her till she went over the hori- 
zon, and felt as if I had lost friends when the night closed in and 
we were once more 

" Alone on the wide, wide sea." 

Nov. 3. — We have just made the port of Havre, and the pilot 
tells us that the packet has been delayed by contrary winds, and 
sails early to-morrow morning. The town bells are ringing 
" nine" (as delightful a sound as I ever heard, to my sea-weary 
ear), and I close in haste, for all is confusion on board. 



LETTER III. 

Havre. — This is one of those places which scribbling travel- 
lers hurry through with a crisp mention of their arrival and 
departure, but, as I have passed a day here upon customhouse 
compulsion, and passed it pleasantly too, and as I have an even- 
ing entirely to myself, and a good fire, why I will order another 
found of wood (they sell it like a drug here), and Monsieur and 
Mademoiselle Somebodies, " violin players right from the hands 
of Paganini, only fifteen years of age, and miracles of music," 
(so says the placard), may delight other lovers of precocious 
talent than I. ' Pen, ink, and paper for No. 2 ! 

If I had not been warned against being astonished, short of 
Paris, I should have thought Havre quite an affair. I certainly 
have seen more that is novel and amusing since morning than 
I ever saw before in any seven days of my life. Not a face, not 
a building, not a dress, not a child even, not a stone in the street, 
nor shop, nor woman, nor beast of burden, looks in any com- 
parable degree like its namesake the other side of the water. 

It was very provoking to eat a salt supper and go to bed in that 
tiresome berth again last night, with a French hotel in full view, 
and no permission to send for a fresh biscuit even, or a cup of 
2 



26 HAVRE. 



milk. It was nine o'clock when we reached the pier, and at that 
late hour there was, of course, no officer to be had for permission 
to land ; and there paced the patrole, with his high black cap and 
red pompon, up and down the quay, within six feet of our taf- 
ferel, and a shot from his arquebuss would have been the conse- 
quence of any unlicensed communication with the shore. It was 
something, however, to sleep without rocking ; and, after a fit of 
musing anticipation, which kept me conscious of the sentinel's 
measured tread till midnight, the " gentle goddess" sealed up my 
cares effectually, and 1 awoke at sunrise — in France ! 

It is a common thing enough to go abroad, and it may seem 
idle and common-place to be enthusiastic about it ; but nothing 
is common or a trifle, to me, that can send the blood so warm to 
my heart, and the color to my temples as generously, as did my 
first conscious thought when I awoke this morning. In France ! 
I would not have had it a dream for the price of an empire ! 

Early in "the morning a woman came clattering into the cabin 
with wooden shoes, and a patois of mingled French and English — 
a olanchissev.se — spattered to the knees with mud, but with a cap 
and 'kerchief that would have made the fortune of a New York 
milliner. Cid ! what politeness ! and what white teeth ! and 
what a knowing row of papillotes, laid in precise parallel, on her 
clear brunette temples. 

" Quelle nouvelle /" said the captain. 

" Poland est a has /" was the answer, with a look of heroic 
sorrow, that would have become a tragedy queen, mourning for 
the loss of a throne. The French maimer, for once, did not 
appear exaggerated. It was news to sadden us all. Pity ! pity! 
that the broad Christian world could look on and see this glorious 
people trampled to the dust in one of the most noble and despe- 



FRENCH BED-ROOM. 27 



rate struggles for liberty that the earth ever saw ! What an 
opportunity was here lost to France for setting a seal of double 
truth and splendor on her own newly-achieved triumph over des- 
potism. The washerwoman broke the silence with " Any clothes 
to wash^ Monsieur ?" and in the instant return of my thoughts to 
my own comparatively-pitiful interests, I found the philosophy 
for all I had condemned in kings — the humiliating and selfish 
individuality of human nature ! And yet I believe with Dr. 
Channing on that dogma. 

At ten o'clock I had performed the traveller's routine — had 
submitted my trunk and my passport to the three authorities, and 
had got into (and out of) as many mounting passions at what 
seemed to me the intolerable impertinencies of searching my 
linen, and inspecting my person for scars. I had paid the porter 
three times his due rather than endure his cataract of French 
expostulation ; and with a bunch of keys, and a landlady attached 
to it, had ascended by a cold, wet, marble staircase, to a parlor 
and bedroom on the fifth floor : as pretty a place, when you 
get there, and as difficult to get to as if it were a palace in thin 
air. It is perfectly French ! Fine, old, last-century chairs, 
covered with splendid yellow damask, two sofas of the same, the 
legs or arms of every one imperfect ; a coarse wood dressing- 
table, covered with fringed drapery and a sort of throne pincush- 
ion, with an immense glass leaning over it, gilded probably in the 
time of Henri Quatre ; artificial flowers all around the room, 
and prints of Atala and Napoleon mourant over the walls ; win- 
dows opening to the floor on hinges, damask and muslin curtains 
inside, and boxes for flower-pots without ; a bell-wire that pulls 
no bell, a bellows too asthmatic even to wheeze, tongs that 
refuse to meet, and a carpet as large as a table-cloth in the cen- 



28 THE COOKING. 



tre of the floor, may answer for an inventory of the " parlor." 
The bedchamber, about half as large as the boxes in Rattle-row, 
at Saratoga, opens by folding doors, and discloses a bed, that, for 
tricksy ornament as well as size, might look the bridal couch for 
a faery queen in a panorama ; the same golden-sprig damask looped 
over it, tent-fashion, with splendid crimson cord, tassels, fringes, 
etc., and a pillow beneath that I shall be afraid to sleep on, it is 
so dainty a piece of needle-work. There is a delusion about it, 
positively. One cannot help imagining, that all this splendor 
means something, and it would require a worse evil than any of 
these little deficiencies of comfort to disturb the self-complacent, 
Captain- Jackson sort of feeling, with which one throws his cloak 
on one sofa and his hat on the other, and spreads himself out for 
a lounge before this mere apology of a French fire. 

But, for eating and drinking ! if they cook better in Paris, I 
shall have my passport altered. The next prefet that signs it 
shall substitute gourmand for proprictairc. I will profess a 
palate, and live to eat. Making every allowance for an appetite 
newly from sea, my experience hitherto in this department of 
science is transcended in the degree of a rushlight to Arcturus. 

I strolled about Havre from breakfast till dinner, seven or 
eight hours, following curiosity at random, up one street and 
down another, with a prying avidity which I fear travel will wear 
fast away. I must compress my observations into a sentence or 
two, for my fire is out, and this old castle of a hotel lets in the wind 
" shrewdly cold," and, besides, the diligence calls for me in a 
few hours and one must sleep. 

Among my impressions the most vivid are — that, of the 
twenty thousand inhabitants of Havre, by far the greater portion 
are women and soldiers — that the buildings all look toppling, and 



CHANCE IMPRESSIONS. 29 



insecurely antique and unsightly — that the privates of the regular 
army are the most stupid, and those of the national guard the most 
intelligent-looking troops I ever saw — that the streets are filthy 
beyond endurance, and the shops clean beyond all praise — that the 
women do all the buying and selling, and cart-driving and sweep- 
ing, and even shoe-making, and other sedentary craftswork, and 
at the same time have (the meanest of them) an air of ambitious 
elegance and neatness, that sends your hand to your hat involun- 
tarily when you speak to them — that the children speak French, 
and look like little old men and women, and the horses, (the 
famed Norman breed) are the best of draught animals, and the 
worst for speed in the world — and that, for extremes ridiculously 
near, dirt and neatness, politeness and knavery, chivalry and 
petitesse, of bearing and language, the people I have seen to-day 
must be pre-eminently remarkable, or France, for a laughing phi- 
losopher, is a paradise indeed ! And now for my pillow, till tbo 
diligence calls. Good night. 



LETTER IV. 

Paris. — It seems to me as if I were going back a month to 
recall my departure from Havre, my memory is so clouded with 
later incidents. I was awaked on the morning after I had writ- 
ten to you, by a servant, who brought me at the same time a cup 
of coffee, and at about an hour before daylight we were passing 
through the huge gates of the town on our way to Paris. The 
whole business of diligence-travelling amused me exceedingly. 
The construction of this vehicle has often been described ; but 
its separate apartments (at four different prices), its enormous 
size, its comfort and clumsiness, and, more than all, the driving 
of its postillions, struck me as equally novel and diverting. This 
last mentioned performer on the whip and voice (the only two 
accomplishments he at all cultivates), rides one of the three 
wheel horses, and drives the four or seven which are in advance, 
as a orazier in our country drives a herd of cattle, and they 
travel very much in the same manner. There is leather enough 
in two of their clumsy harnesses, to say nothing of the postillion's 
boots, to load a common horse heavily. I never witnessed such 
a ludicrous absence of contrivance and tact as in the appointments 
and driving of horses in a diligence. It is so in everything in 



PLEASANT COMPANION. 31 



France, indeed. They do not possess the quality as a nation. 
The story of the Grascoigne, who saw a bridge for the first time, 
and admired the ingenious economy that placed it across the 
river, instead of lengthwise, is hardly an exaggeration. 

At daylight I found myself in the coupe (a single seat for three 
in the front of the body of the carriage, with windows before and 
at the sides), with two whiskered and mustached companions, 
both very polite, and very unintelligible. I soon suspected, by 
the science with which my neighbor on the left hummed little 
snatches of popular operas, that he was a professed singer (a con- 
jecture which proved true), and it was equally clear, from the 
complexion of the portfeuille on the lap of the other, that his 
vocation was a liberal one — a conjecture which proved true also, 
as he confessed himself a diplomat, when we became better 
acquainted. For the first hour or more my attention was divided 
between the dim but beautiful outline of the country by the 
slowly approaching light of the dawn, and my nervousness at the 
distressing want of skill in the postillion's driving. The increas- 
ing and singular beauty of the country, even under the disadvan- 
tage of rain and the late season, soon absorbed all my attention, 
however, and my involuntary and half-suppressed exclamations 
of pleasure, so unusual in an Englishman (for whom I found I 
was taken), warmed the diplomatist into conversation, and I 
passed the three ensuing hours very pleasantly. My companion 
was on his return from Lithuania, having been sent out by the 
French committee with arms and money for Poland. He was, 
of course, a most interesting fellow-traveller ; and, allowing for 
the difficulty with which I understood the language, in the rapid 
articulation of an enthusiastic Frenchman, I rarely have been 
better pleased with a chance acquaintance. I found he had been 



32 NORMANDY. 



in Greece during the revolution, and knew intimately my friend. 

Dr. Hone, the best claim he could have on my interest, and, I 

soon discovered,- an answering recommendation of myself to 

him. 

The province of Normandy is celebrated for its picturesque 

beauty, but I had no conception before of the cultivated pictu- 
resque of an old country. I have been a great scenery-hunter in 
America, and my eye was new, like its hills and forests. The 
massive, battlemented buildings of the small villages we passed 
through, the heavy gateways and winding avenues and antique struc- 
ture of the distant and half-hidden chateaux, the perfect cultiva- 
tion, and, to me, singular appearance of a whole landscape 
without a fence or a stone, the absence of all that we define by 
comfort and neatness, and the presence of all that we have seen 
in pictures and read of in books, but consider as the representa- 
tions and descriptions of ages : gone by — all seemed to me irre- 
sistibly like a dream. I could not rub my hand over my eyes, 
and realize myself. I could not believe that, within a month's 
voyage of my home, these spirit-stirring places had stood all my life- 
time as they do, and have — for ages — every stone as it was laid 
in times of worm-eaten history— -and looking to my eyes now as 
they did to the eyes of knights and dames in the days of French 
chivalry. I looked at the constantly-occurring ruins of the old 
priories, and the magnificent and still-used churches, and my 
blood tingled in my veins, as I saw, in the stepping-stones at their 
doors, cavities that the sandals of monks, and the iron-shod feet 
of knights in armor a thousand years ago, had trodden and helped 
to wear, and the stone cross over the threshold, that hundreds of 
generations had gazed upon and passed under. 

By a fortunate chance the postillion left the usual route at 



ROUExX. 33 



Baibec, and pursued what appeared to be a bye-road through 
the grain-fields and vineyards for twenty or twenty-five miles. I 
can only describe it as an uninterrupted green lane, winding 
almost the whole distance through the bosom of a valley that 
must be one of the very loveliest in the world. Imagine one of 
such extent, without a fence to break the broad swells of verdure, 
stretching up from the winding and unenclosed road on either 
side, to the apparent sky ; the houses occurring at distances of 
miles, and every one with its thatched roof covered all over with 
bright green moss, and its walls of marl interlaid through all the 
crevices with clinging vines, the whole structure and its appurte- 
nances fautlessly picturesque, and, when you have conceived a 
valley that might have contented Rasselas, scatter over it here 
and there groups of men, women, and children, the Norman 
peasantry in their dresses of all colors, as you see them in the 
prints — and if there is anything that can better please the eye, 
or make the imagination more willing to fold up its wings and 
rest, my travels have not crossed it. I have recorded a vow to 
walk through Normandy. 

As we approached Rouen the road ascended gradually, and a 
sharp turn brought us suddenly to the brow of a steep hill, oppo- 
site another of the same height, and with the same abrupt 
descent, at the distance of a mile across. Between, lay Rouen. 
I hardly know how to describe, for American eyes, the peculiar 
beauty of this view ; one of the most exquisite, I am told, in all 
France. A town at the foot of a hill is common enough in our 
country, but of the hundreds that answer to this description, I 
can not name one that would afford a correct comparison. The 
nice and excessive cultivation of the grounds in so old a country 
gives the landscape a complexion essentially different from ours. 



34 EDEN OF CULTIVATION. 

If there were another Mount Holyoke, for instance, on the other 
side of the Connecticut, the situation of Northampton would be 
very similar to that of Rouen ; but, instead of the rural village, 
with its glimpses of white houses seen through rich and luxurious 
masses of foliage, the mountain sides above broken with rocks, 
and studded with the gigantic and untouched relics of the native 
forest, and the fields below waving with heavy crops, irregularly 
fenced and divided, the whole picture one of an overlavish and 
half-subdued Eden of fertility — instead of this I say — the broad 
meadows, with the winding Seine in their bosom, are as trim as a 
girl's flower-garden, the grass closely cut, and of a uniform surface 
of green, the edges of the river set regularly with willows, the little 
bright islands circled with trees, and smooth as a lawn ; and 
instead of green lanes lined with bushes, single streets running 
right through the unfenced verdure, from one hill to another, and 
built up with antique structures of stone — the whole looking, in the 
coup d^ceil of distance, like some fantastic model of a town, with 
gothic houses of sand-paper, and meadows of silk velvet. 

You will find the size, population, etc., of Rouen in the guide- 
books. As my object is to record impressions, not statistics, I 
leave you to consult those laconic chronicles, or the books of a 
thousand travellers, for all such information. The Maid of 
Orleans was burnt here, as you know, in the fourteenth century. 
There is a statue erected to her memory, which I did not see, 
for it rained ; and after the usual stop of two hours, as the baro- 
meter promised no change in the weather, and as I was anxious 
to be in Paris, I took my place in the night diligence and kept on. 
I amused myself till dark, watching the streams that poured 
into the broad mouth of the postillion's boots from every part of 
his dress, and musing on the fate of the poor Maid of Orleans ; 



ST. DENIS. 35 



and then;, sinking down into the comfortable corner of the coupe, 
I slept almost without interruption till the next morning — the 
best comment in the world on the only comfortable thing I have 
yet seen in France, a diligence. 

It is a pleasant thing in a foreign land to see the familiar face 
of the sun ; and, as he rose over a distant hill on the l%ft, I lifted 
the window of the coupe to let him in, as I would open the door 
to a long-missed friend. He soon reached a heavy cloud, how- 
ever, and my hopes of bright weather, when we should enter the 
metropolis, departed. It began to rain again ; and the postilion, 
after his blue cotton frock was soaked through, put on his great- 
coat over it — an economy which is peculiarly French, and which 
I observed in every succeeding postilion on the route. The last 
twenty-five miles to Paris are uninteresting to the eye ; and with 
my own pleasant thoughts, tinct as they were with the brightness 
of immediate anticipation, and an occasional laugh at the gro- 
tesque figures and equipages on the road, I made myself passably 
contented till I entered the suburb of St. Denis. 

It is something to see the outside of a sepulchre for kings, and 
the old abbey of St. Denis needs no association to make a sight 
of it worth many a mile of weary travel. I could not stop within 
four miles of Paris, however, and I contented myself with run- 
ning to get a second view of it in the rain while the postilion 
breathed his horses. The strongest association about it, old and 
magnificent as it is, is the fact that Napoleon repaired it after the 
revolution ; and standing in probably the finest point for its front 
view, my heart leaped to my throat as I fancied that Napoleon, 
with his mighty thoughts, had stood in that very spot, possibly, 
and contemplated the glorious old pile before me as the place of 
his future repose. 



36 ENTRANCE TO PARIS. 



After four miles more, over a broad straight avenue, paved in 
the centre and edged with trees, we arrived at the port of St. 
Denis. I was exceedingly struck with the grandeur of the gate 
as we passed under, and, referring to the guide-book, I find it was 
a triumphal arch erected to Louis XIV., and the one by which 
the kinganof France invariably enter. This also was restored by 
Napoleon, with his infallible taste, without changing its design: 
and it is singular how everything that great man touched became 
his own — for, who remembers for whom it was raised while he is 
told who employed his great intellect in its repairs ? 

I entered Paris on Sunday at eleven o'clock. I never should 
have recognized the day. The shops were all open, the artificers 
all at work, the unintelligible criers vociferating their wares, and 
the people in their working-day dresses. We wound through 
street after street, narrow and dark and dirty, and with my mind 
full of the splendid views of squares, and columns, and bridges, 
as I had seen them in the prints, I could scarce believe I was in 
Paris. A turn brought us into a large court, that of the Messa- 
gerie, the place at which all travellers are set down on arrival. 
Here my baggage was once more inspected, and, after a half- 
hour's delay, I was permitted to get into a fiacre^ and drive to a 
hotel. As one is a specimen of all, I may as well describe the 
Hotel d'Etrangers, Rue Yivienne, which, by the way, I take the 
liberty at the same time to recommend to my friends. It is the 
precise centre for the convenience of sight-seeing, admirably 
kept, and, being nearly opposite Galignani's, that bookstore of 
Europe, is a very pleasant resort for the half hour before dinner, 
or a rainy day. I went there at the instance of my friend the 
dvploviat. 

The Jin ere stopped before an arched passage, and a fellow in 



LODGINGS. 37 



livery, who had followed me from the Messagerie (probably in 
the double character of porter and police agent, as my passport 
was yet to be demanded), took my trunk into a small office on 
the left, over which was written " Concierge." This person, 
who is a kind of respectable doorkeeper, addressed me in broken 
English, without waiting for the evidence of my tongue, that I 
was a foreigner, and, after inquiring at what price I would have 
a room, introduced me to the landlady, who took me across a large 
court (the houses are built round the yard always in France), to 
the corresponding story of the house. The room was quite 
pretty, with its looking-glasses and curtains, but there was no 
carpet, and the fireplace was ten feet deep. I asked to see ano- 
ther, and another, and another ; they were all curtains and look- 
ing-glasses, and stone-floors ! There is no wearying a French 
woman, and I pushed my modesty till I found a chamber to my 
taste — a nutshell, to be sure, but carpeted — and bowing my 
polite housekeeper out, I rang for breakfast and was at home in 
Paris. 

There are few things bought with money that are more delight- 
ful than a French breakfast. If you take it at your room, it 
appears in the shape of two small vessels, one of coffee and one 
of hot milk, two kinds of bread, with a thin, printed slice of 
butter, and one or two of some thirty dishes from which you 
choose, the latter flavored exquisitely enough to make one wish to 
be always at breakfast, but cooked and composed I know not 
how or of what. The coffee has an aroma peculiarly exquisite, 
someting quite different from any I ever tasted before ; and the 
petit-pain, a slender biscuit between bread and cake, is, when 
crisp and warm, a delightful accompaniment. All this costs 
about one third as much as the beefsteaks and coffee in America, 



38 WALK OF DISCOVERY. 



and at the same time that you are waited upon with a civility 
that is worth three times the money. 

It still rained at noon, and, finding that the usual dinner hour 
was five, I took my umbrella for a walk. In a strange city I 
prefer always to stroll about at hazard, coming unawares upon 
what is fine or curious. The hackneyed descriptions in the 
guidebooks profane the spirit of a place ; I never look at them till 
after I have found the object, and then only for dates. The 
Rue Vivienne was crowded with people, as I emerged from the 
dark archway of the hotel to pursue my wanderings. 

A walk of this kind, by the way, shows one a great deal of 
novelty. In France there are no shop-w?j. No matter what is 
the article of trade — hats, boots, pictures, books, jewellery, any- 
thing or everything that gentlemen buy — you are waited upon by 
girls, always handsome, and always dressed in the height of the 
mode. They sit on damask-covered settees, behind the counters ; 
and, when you enter, bow and rise to serve you, with a grace and 
a smile of courtesy that would become a drawing-room. And 
this is universal. 

I strolled on until I entered a narrow passage, penetrating a 
long line of buildings. It was thronged with people, and passing 
in with the rest, I found myself unexpectedly in a scene that 
equally surprised and delighted me. It was a spacious square 
enclosed by one entire building. The area was laid out as a 
garden, planted with long avenues of trees and beds of flowers, 
and in the centre a fountain was playing in the shape of ajteur- 
de-lis, with a jet about forty feet in height. A superb colonnade 
ran round the whole square, making a covered gallery of the 
lower story, which was occupied by shops of the most splendid 
appearance, and thronged through its long sheltered paves by 



PALAIS ROYAL. 39 



thousands of gay promenaders. It was the far-famed Palais 
Royal. I remembered the description I had heard of its gam- 
bling houses, and facilities for every vice, and looked with a new 
surprise on its Aladdin-like magnificence. The hundreds of beau- 
tiful pillars, stretching away from the eye in long and distant 
perspective, the crowd of citizens, and women, and officers in 
full uniform, passing and re-passing with French liveliness and 
politeness, the long windows of plated glass glittering with jewel- 
lery, and bright with everything to tempt the fancy, the tall 
sentinels pacing between the columns, and the fountain turning 
over its clear waters with a' fall audible above the tread and 
voices of the thousands who walked around it — who could look 
upon such a scene and believe it what it is, the most corrupt spot, 
probably, on the face of the civilized world ? 



. LETTER V. 

THE LOUVRE AMERICANS IN PARIS POLITICS, ETC. 

The salient object in my idea of Paris has always been the 
Louvre. I have spent some hours in its vast gallery to-day, and 
I am sure it will retain the same prominence in my recollections. 
The whole palace is one of the oldest, and said to be one of the 
finest, in Europe ; and, if I may judge from its impressiveness, 
the vast inner court (the fagadcs of which were restored to their 
original simplicity by Napoleon), is a specimen of high architec- 
tural perfection. One could hardly pass through it without being 
better fitted to see the masterpieces of art within ; and it requires 
this, and all the expansiveness of which the mind is capable 
besides, to walk through the Musee Roy ah without the painful 
sense of a magnificence beyond the grasp of the faculties. 

I delivered my passport at the door of the palace, and, 
as is customary, recorded my name, country, and profession in 
the book, and proceeded to the gallery. The grand double stair- 
case, one part leading to the private apartments of the royal 
household, is described voluminously in the authorities ; and, 
truly, for one who has been accustomed to convenient dimensions 



GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE. 41 



only, its breadth, its lofty ceilings, its pillars and statuary, its 
mosaic pavements and splendid windows, are enough to unsettle 
for ever the standards of size and grandeur. The strongest feel- 
ing one has, as he stops half way up to look about him, is the ludi- 
crous disproportion between it and the size of the inhabiting 
animals. I should smile to see any man ascend such a staircase, 
except, perhaps, Napoleon. 

Passing through a kind of entrance-hall, I came to a spacious 
sollc ronde^ lighted from the ceiling, and hung principally with 
pictures of a large size, one of the most conspicuous of which, 
" The Wreck," has been copied by an American artist, Mr. 
Cooke, and is now exhibiting in New York. It is one of the 
best of the French school, and very powerfully conceived. I 
regret, however, that he did not prefer the wonderfully fine piece 
opposite, which is worth all the pictures ever painted in France, 
" The Marriage Supper at Cana." The left wing of the table, 
projected toward the spectator, with seven or eight guests who 
occupy it, absolutely stands out into the hall. It seems impossi- 
ble that color and drawing upon a fiat surface can so cheat the 
eye. 

From the salle ronde on the right opens the grand gallery, 
which, after the lesson I had just received in perspective, I took, 
at the first glance, to be a painting. You will realize the facility 
of the deception when you consider, that, with a breadth of but 
forty-two feet, this gallery is one thousand three hundred and 
thirty-two feet (more than a quarter of a mile) in length. The 
floor is of tesselated woods, polished with wax like a table ; and 
along its glassy surface were scattered perhaps a hundred visiters, 
gazing at the pictures in varied attitudes, and with sizes reduced 
in proportion to their distance, the farthest off looking, in the 



42 GREENOUGH. 



long perspective, like pigmies of the most diminutive description. 
It is like a matchless painting to the eye, after all. The ceiling 
is divided by nine or ten arches, standing each on four Corinthian 
columns, projecting into the area ; and the natural perspective 
of these, and the artists scattered from one end to the other, 
copying silently at their easels, and a soldier at every division, 
standing upon his guard, quite as silent and motionless, would 
make it difficult to convince a spectator, who was led blindfold 
and unprepared to the entrance, that it was not some superb 
diorama, figures and all. 

I found our distinguished countryman, Morse, copying a beau- 
tiful Murillo at the end of the gallery. He is also engaged upon 
a RafFaelle for Cooper, the novelist. Among the French artists, 
I noticed several soldiers, and some twenty or thirty females, the 
latter with every mark in their countenances of absorbed and 
extreme application. There was a striking difference in this 
respect between them and the artists of the other sex. With the 
single exception of a lovely girl, drawing from a Madonna, by 
Guido, and protected by the presence of an elderly companion, 
these lady painters were anything but interesting in their appear- 
ance. 

Greenough, the sculptor, is in Paris, and engaged just now in 
taking the bust of an Italian lady. His reputation is now very 
enviable ; and his passion "for his art, together with his untiring 
industry and his fine natural powers, will work him up to some- 
thing that will, before long, be an honor to our country. If the 
wealthy men of taste in America would give Greenough liberal 
orders for his time and talents, and send out Augur, of New 
Haven, to Italy, they would do more to advance this glorious art 
in our country, than by expending ten times the sum in any other 



FEELING AS A FOREIGNER. 43 



way. They are both men of rare genius, and both ardent and 
diligent, and they are both cramped by the universal curse of 
genius — necessity. The Americans in Paris are deliberating at 
present on some means for expressing unitedly to our government 
their interest in Gieenough, and their appreciation of his 
merit of public and private patronage. For the love of true 
taste, do everything in your power to second such an appeal when 
H comes. 



It is a queer feeling to find oneself a foreigner. One cannot 
realize, long at a time, how his face or his manners should have 
become peculiar ; and, after looking at a print for five minutes in 
a shop window, or dipping into an English book, or in any man- 
ner throwing off the mental habit of the instant, the curious gaze 
of the passer by, or the accent of a strange language, strikes one 
very singularly. Paris is full of foreigners of all nations, and of 
course, physiognomies of all characters may be met everywhere ; 
but, differing as the European nations do decidedly from each 
other, they differ still more from the American. Our country- 
men, as a class, are distinguishable wherever they are met ; not 
as Americans however, for, of the habits and manners of our 
country, people know nothing this side the water. But there is 
something in an American face, of which I never was aware till 
I met them in Europe, that is altogether peculiar. The French 
take the Americans to be English : but an Englishman, while he 
presumes him his countryman, shows a curiosity to know who he 
is, which is very foreign to his usual indifference. As far as I 
can analyze it, it is the independent self-possessed bearing of a 
man unused to look up to any one as his superior in rank, united 
to the inquisitive, sensitive, communicative expression which is 



44 SOLITUDE IN THE LOUVRE. 



the index to our national character. The first is seldom pos- 
sessed in England but by a man of decided rank, and the latter 
is never possessed by an Englishman at all. The two are united 
in no other nation. Nothing is easier than to tell the rank of an 
Englishman, and nothing puzzles a European more than to know 
how to rate the pretensions of an American. 



On my way home from the Boulevards this evening, I was for- 
tunate enough to pass through the grand court of the Louvre, at 
the moment when the moon broke through the clouds that have 
concealed her own light and the sun's ever since I have been in 
France. I had often stopped, in passing the sentinels at the 
entrance, to admire the grandeur of the interior to this oldest of 
the royal palaces ; but to-night, my dead halt within the shadow 
of the arch, as the view broke upon my eye, and my sudden 
exclamation in English, startled the grenadier, and he had half 
presented his musket, when I apologized and passed on. It was 
magically beautiful indeed ! and, with the moonlight pouring 
obliquely into the sombre area, lying full upon the taller of the 
three fagades, and drawing its soft line across the rich windows 
and massive pilasters and arches of the eastern and western, 
while the remaining front lay in the heavy black shadow of relief, 
it seemed to me more like an accidental regularity in some rocky 
glen of America, than a pile of human design and proportion. 
It is strange how such high walls shut out the world. The court 
of the Louvre is in the very centre of the busiest quarter of 
Paris, thousands of persons passing and repassing constantly at 
the extremity of the long arched entrances, and yet, standing on 
the pavement of that lonely court, no living creature in sight but 
the motionless grenadiers at either gate, the noises without com- 



LOUIS PHILIPPE. 45 



ing to your ear in a subdued murmur, like the wind on the sea, 
and nothing visible above but the sky, resting like a ceiling on 
the lofty walls, the impression of utter solitude is irresistible. I 
passed out by the archway for which Napoleon constructed his 
bronze gates, said to be the most magnificent of modern times, 
and which are now lying in some obscure corner unused, no suc- 
ceeding power having had the spirit or the will to complete, even 
by the slight labor that remained, his imperial design. All over 
Paris you may see similar instances ; they meet you at every 
step : glorious plans defeated ; works, that with a mere moiety 
of what has been already expended in their progress, might be 
finished with an effect that none but a mind like Napoleon's could 
have originally projected. 



Paris, of course, is rife with politics. There is but one 
opinion on the subject of another pending revolution. The 
" people's king" is about as unpopular as he need be for the pur- 
poses of his enemies ; and he has aggravated the feeling against 
him very unnecessarily by his late project in the Tuileries. The 
whole thing is very characteristic of the French people. He 
might have deprived them of half their civil rights without imme- 
diate resistance ; but to cut off a strip of the public garden to 
make a play ground for his children — to encroach a hundred feet 
on the pride of Paris, the daily promenade of the idlers, who do 
all the discussion of his measures, it was a little too venturesome. 
Unfortunately, too, the offence is in the very eye of curiosity, 
and the workmen are surrounded, from morning till night, by 
thousands of people, of all classes, gesticulating, and looking at 
the palace windows, and winding themselves gradually up to the 
revolutionary pitch. 



46 THE POLES. 



In the event of an explosion, the liberal party will not want 
partizans, for Frauce is crowded with refugees from tyranuy, of 
every nation. The Poles are flocking hither every day, and the 
streets are full of their melancholy faces ! Poor fellows ! they suffer 
dreadfully from want. The public charity for refugees has been 
wrung dry long ago, and the most heroic hearts of Poland, after 
having lost everything but life, in their unavailing struggle, are 
starving absolutely in the streets. Accident has thrown me into 
the confidence of a well-known liberal — one of those men of 
whom the proud may ask assistance without humiliation, and 
circumstances have thus come to my knowledge, which would 
move a heart of stone. The fictitious sufferings of " Thaddeus 
of Warsaw," are transcended in real-life misery every day, 
and by natures quite as noble. Lafayette, I am credibly assured, 
has anticipated several years of his income in relieving them ; 
and no possible charity could be so well bestowed as contributions 
for the Poles, starving in these heartless cities. 

I have just heard that Chodsko, a Pole, of distinguished talent 
and learning, who threw his whole fortune and energy into the 
late attempted revolution, was arrested here last night, with 
eight others of his countrymen, under suspicion by the govern- 
ment. The late serious insurrection at Lyons has alarmed 
the king, and the police is exceedingly strict. The Spanish and 
Italian refugees, who receive pensions from France, have been 
ordered off to the provincial towns, by the minister of the interior, 
and there is every indication of extreme and apprehensive cau- 
tion. The papers, meantime, are raving against the ministry in 
the most violent terms, and the king is abused without qualifica- 
tion, everywhere. 

I went, a night or two since, to one of the minor theatres to 



NAPOLEON II. 47 



sec the representation of a play, which has been performed for 

i 
the hundred and second time ! — " Napoleon at Schoenbrun and 

St. Helena." My object was to study the feelings of the people 

toward Napoleon II., as the exile's love for his son is one of the 

leading features of the piece. It was beautifully played — most 

beautifully ! and I never saw more enthusiasm manifested by an 

audience. Every allusion of Napoleon to his child, was received 

with that undertoned, gutteral acclamation, that expresses such 

deep feeling in a crowd ; and the piece is so written that its 

natural pathos alone is irresistible. No one could doubt for an 

instant, it seems to me, that the entrance of young Napoleon 

into France, at any critical moment, would be universally and 

completely triumphant. The great cry at Lyons was " Vive 

Napoleon II /" 

I have altered my arrangements a little, in consequence of the 

state of feeling here. My design was to go to Italy immediately, 

but affairs promise such an interesting and early change, that I 

shall pass the winter in Paris. 



LETTER VI. 

TAGLIONI FRENCH STAGE, ETC. 

I went last night to the French opera, to see the first dancer 
of the world. The prodigious enthusiasm about her, all over 
Europe, had, of course, raised my expectations to the highest 
possible pitch. " Have you seen Taglioni ?" is the first question 
addressed to a stranger in Paris ; and you hear her name con- 
stantly over all the hum of the cafes and in the crowded resorts 
of fashion. The house was overflowed. The king and his 
numerous family were present ; and my companion pointed out 
to me many of the nobility, whose names and titles have been 
made familiar to our ears by the innumerable private memoirs 
and autobiographies of the day. After a little introductory 
piece, the king arrived, and, as soon as the cheering was over, 
the curtain drew up for " Le Dieu et la Bayadere." This is the 
piece in which Taglioni is most famous. She takes the part of 
a dancing girl, of whom the Bramah and an Indian prince are 
both enamored ; the former in the disguise of a man of low rank 
at the court of the latter, in search of some one whose love for 
him shall be disinterested. The disguised god succeeds in win- 



TAGLIONI. 49 



ning her affection, and, after testing her devotion by submitting 
for a while to the resentment of his rival, and by a pretended 
caprice in favor of a singing girl, who accompanies her, he mar- 
ries her, and then saves her from the flames as she is about to be 
burned for marrying beneath her caste. Taglioni's part is all 
pantomime. She does not speak during the play, but her motion 
is more than articulate. Her first appearance was in a troop of 
Indian dancing girls, who performed before the prince in the 
public square. At a signal from the vizier a side pavilion opened, 
and thirty or forty bayaderes glided out together, and commenced 
an intricate dance. They were received with a tremendous round 
of applause from the audience ; but, with the exception of a 
little more elegance in the four who led the dance, they were 
dressed nearly alike ; and as I saw no particularly conspicuous 
figure, I presumed that Taglioni had not yet appeared. The 
splendor of the spectacle bewildered me for the first moment or 
two, but I presently found my eyes rivettcd to a childish crea- 
ture floating about among the rest, and, taking her for some 
beautiful young eleve making her first essays in the chorus, I 
interpreted her extraordinary fascination as a triumph of nature 
over my unsophisticated taste ; and wondered to myself whether, 
after all, I should be half so much captivated with the show of 
skill I expected presently to witness. This was Taglioni ! She 
came forward directly, in a pas seul, and I then observed that her 
dress was distinguished from that of her companions by its 
extreme modesty both of fashion and ornament, and the uncon- 
strained ease with which it adapted itself to her shape and 
motion. She looks not more than fifteen. Her figure is small, 
but rounded to the very last degree of perfection ; not a muscle 
swelled beyond the exquisite outline ; not an angle, not a fault. 
3 



50 FRENCH ACTING. 



Her back and neck, those points so rarely beautiful in woman, 
are faultlessly formed ; her feet and hands are in full proportion 
to her size, and the former play as freely and with as natural a 
yieldiugness in her fairy slippers, as if they were accustomed only 
to the dainty uses of a drawing-room. Her face is most strangely 
interesting ; not quite beautiful, but of that half-appealing, half- 
retiring sweetness that you sometimes see blended with the 
secluded reserve and unconscious refinement of a young 'girl just 
" out" in a circle of high fashion. In her greatest exertions her 
features retain the same timid half smile, and she returns to the 
alternate by-play of her part without the slightest change of 
color, or the slightest perceptible difference in her breathing, or 
in the ease of her look and posture. No language can describe 
her motion. She swims in your eye like a curl of smoke, or a 
flake of down. Her difficulty seems to be to keep to the floor. 
You have the feeling while you gaze upon her, that, if she were 
to rise and float away like Ariel, you would scarce be surprised. 
And yet all is done with such a childish unconsciousness of admi- 
ration, such a total absence of exertion or fatigue, that the 
delight with which she fills you is unmingled ; and, assured as 
you are by the perfect purity of every look and attitude, that her 
hitherto spotless reputation is deserved beyond a breath of suspi- 
cion, you leave her with as much respect as admiration ; and find 
with surprise that a dancing girl, who is exposed night after night 
to the profaning gaze of the world, has crept into one of the most 
sacred niches of your memory. 



I have attended several of the best theatres in Paris, and find 
one striking trait in all their first actors — nature. They do not 
look like actors, and their playing is not like acting. They are men, 



FRENCH APPLAUSE. 51 



generally, of the most earnest, unstudied simplicity of countenance ; 
and when they come upon the stage, it is singularly without affec- 
tation, and as the character they represent would appear. Un- 
like most of the actors I have seen, too, they seem altogether 
unaware of the presence of the audience. Nothing disturbs the 
fixed attention they give to each other in the dialogue, and no 
private interview between simple and sincere men could be more 
unconscious and natural. I have formed consequently a high 
opinion of the French drama, degenerate as it is said to be since 
the loss of Talma ; and it is easy to see that the root of its 
excellence is in the taste and judgment of the people. They 
applaud judiciously . When Taglioni danced her wonderful pas 
seul, for instance, the applause was general and sufficient. It 
was a triumph of art, and she was applauded as an artist. But 
when, as the neglected bayadere, she stole from the corner of the 
cottage, and, with her indescribable grace, hovered about the 
couch of the disguised Bramah, watching and fanning him while 
he slept, she expressed so powerfully, by the saddened tenderness 
of her manner, the devotion of a love that even neglect could 
not estrange, that a murmur of delight ran through the whole 
house ; and, when her silent pantomime was interrupted by the 
waking of the god, there was an overwhelming tumult of accla- 
mation that came from the hearts of the audience, and as such 
must have been both a lesson, and the highest compliment, to 
Taglioni. An actor's taste is of course very much regulated by 
that of his audience. He will cultivate that for which he is most 
praised. We shall never have a high-toned drama in America, 
while', as at present, applause is won only by physical exertion, 
and the nice touches of genius and nature pass undetected and 
unfelt. 



52 LEONTINE FAY. 



Of the French actresses, I have been most pleased with Leon- 
tine Fay. She is not much talked of here, and perhaps, as a 
mere artist in her profession, is inferior to those who are more 
popular ; but she has that indescribable something in her face that 
has interested me through life — that strange talisman which is 
linked wisely to every heart, coufining its interest to some nice 
difference invisible to other eyes, and, by a happy consequence, 
undisputed by other admiration. She, too, has that retired 
sweetness of look that seems to come only from secluded habits, 
and in the highly-wrought passages of tragedy, when her fine 
dark eyes are filled with tears, and her tones, which have never 
the out-of-doors key of the stage, are clouded and imperfect, she 
seems less an actress than a refined and lovely woman, breaking 
through the habitual reserve of society in some agonizing crisis 
of real life. There are prints of Leontine Fay in the shops, and 
I have seen them in America, but they resemble her very little. 



LETTER VII. 

JOACHIM LELEWEL PALAIS ROYAL PERE LA CHAISE- — 

VERSAILLES, ETC. 

I met, at a breakfast party, to-day, Joachim Lelewel, the 
celebrated scholar and patriot of Poland. Having fallen in with 
a great deal of revolutionary and emigrant society since I have 
been in Paris, I have often heard his name, and looked forward 
to meeting him with high pleasure and curiosity. His writings 
are passionately admired by his countrymen. He was the prin- 
cipal of the university, idolized by that effective part of the 
population, the students of Poland ; and the fearless and lofty 
tone of his patriotic principles is said to have given the first and 
strongest momentum to the ill-fated struggle just over. Lelewel 
impressed me very strongly. Unlike most of the Poles, who are 
erect, athletic, and florid, he is thin, bent, and pale ; and were it 
not for the fire and decision of his eye, his uncertain gait and 
sensitive address would convey an expression almost of timidity. 
His form, features, and manners, are very like those of Percival, 
the American poet, though their countenances are marked with 
the respective difference of their habits of mind. Lelewel looks 



54 LELEWEL. 



like a naturally modest, shrinking man, worked up to the calm 
resolution of a martyr. The strong stamp of his face is devoted 
enthusiasm. His eye is excessively bright, but quiet and habit- 
ually downcast; his lips are set firmly, but without effort, 
together ; and his voice is almost sepulchral, it is so low and 
calm. He never breaks through his melancholy, though his 
refugee countrymen, except when Poland is alluded to, have all 
the vivacity of French manners, and seem easily to forget their 
misfortunes. He was silent, except when particularly addressed, 
and had the air of a man who thought himself unobserved, and 
had shrunk into his own mind. I felt that he was winning upon 
my heart every moment. I never saw a man in my life whose 
whole air and character were so free from self-consciousness or 
pretension — never one who looked to me so capable of the calm, 
lofty, unconquerable heroism of a martyr. 



" Paris is the centre of the world," if centripetal tendency is 
any proof of it. Everything struck off from the other parts of 
the universe flies straight to the Palais Royal. You may meet 
in its thronged galleries, in the course of an hour, representatives 
of every creed, rank, nation, and system, under heaven. Hus- 
sein Pacha and Don Pedro pace daily the same pave — the one 
brooding on a kingdom lost, the other on the throne he hopes to 
win ; the Polish general and the proscribed Spaniard, the exiled 
Italian conspirator, the contemptuous Turk, the well-dressed 
negro from Hayti, and the silk-robed Persian, revolve by the 
hour together around the same jet tPeau, and costumes of every 
cut and order, mustaches and beards of every degree of ferocity 
and oddity, press so fast and thick upon the eye that one forgets 
to be astonished. There are no such things as " lions" in Paris. 



PERE LA CHAISE. 55 



The extraordinary persons outnumber the ordinary. Every other 
man you meet would keep a small town in a ferment for a month. 

I spent yesterday at Pere la Chaise^ and to day at Versailles. 
The two places are in opposite environs, and of very opposite 
characters — one certainly making you in love with \\£q, the other 
almost as certainly with death. One could wander for ever in 
the wilderness of art at Versailles, and it must be a restless ghost 
that could not content itself with Pere la Chaise for its elysium. 

This beautiful cemetery is built upon the broad ascent of a 
hill, commanding the whole of Paris at a glance. It is a wood 
of small trees, laid out in alleys, and crowded with tombs 
and monuments of every possible description. You will scarce 
get through without being surprised into a tear ; but, if affectation 
and fantasticalness in such a place do not more grieve than 
amuse you, you will much oftener smile. The whole thing is a 
melancholy mock of life. Its distinctions are all kept up. 
There are the fashionable avenues, lined with costly chapels and 
monuments, with the names of the exclusive tenants in golden 
letters upon the doors, iron railings set forbiddingly about the 
shrubs, and the blessing-scrap writ ambitiously in Latin. The 
tablets record the long family titles, and the offices and honors ; 
perhaps the numberless virtues of the dead. They read like 
chapters of heraldry more than like epitaphs. It is a relief to 
get into the outer alleys, and see how. poverty and simple feeling 
express what should be the same thing. It is usually some brief 
sentence, common enough, but often exquisitely beautiful in this 
prettiest of languages, and expressing always the kind of sorrow 
felt by the mourner. You can tell, for instance, by the senti- 
ment simply, without looking at the record below, whether the 



56 PAUVRE MARIE. 



deceased was young, or much loved, or mourned by husband, or 
parent, or brother, or a circle of all. I noticed one, however, 
the humblest and simplest monument perhaps in the whole 
cemetery, which left the story beautifully untold ; it was a slab 
of common marl, inscribed u Pauvre Mark /" — nothing more. I 
have thought of it, and speculated upon it, a great deal since. 
What was she ? and who wrote her epitaph ? why was she pauvre 
Marie ? 

Before almost all the poorer monuments is a minature garden 
with a low wooden fence, and either the initials of the dead sown 
in flowers, or rose-trees, carefully cultivated, trained to hang over 
the stone. I was surprised to find, in a public cemetery, in 
December, roses in full bloom and valuable exotics at almost 
every grave. It speaks both for the sentiment and delicate 
principle of the people. Few of the more costly monuments 
were either interesting or pretty. One struck my fancy — a 
small open chapel, large enough to contain four chairs, with the 
slab facing the door, and a crucifix encircled with fresh flowers on 
a simple shrine above. It is a place where the survivors in a 
family might come and sit at any time, nowhere more pleasantly. 
From the chapel I speak of, you may look out and see all Paris ; 
and I can imagine how it would lessen the feeling of desertion and 
forgetfulness that makes the anticipation of death so dreadful, to 
be certain that your friends would come, as they may here, and 
talk cheerfully and enjoy themselves near you, so to speak. The 
cemetery in summer must be one of the sweetest places in the 
world. 



VERSAILLES. 57 



Versailles is a royal summer chateau, about twelve miles from 
Paris, with a demesne of twenty miles in circumference. Take 
that for the scale, and imagine a palace completed in proportion, 
in all its details of grounds, ornament, and architecture. It cost, 
says the guide book, two hundred and fifty millions of dollars ; 
and, leaving your fancy to expend that trifle over a residence, 
which, remember, is but one out of some half dozen, occupied 
during the year by a single family, I commend the republican 
moral to your consideration, and proceed with the more particu- 
lar description of my visit. 

My friend, Dr. Howe, was my companion. We drove up the 
grand avenue on one of the loveliest mornings that ever surprised 
December with a bright sun and a warm south wind. Before us, 
at the distance of a mile, lay a vast mass of architecture, with 
the centre falling back between the two projecting wings, the 
whole crowning a long and gradual ascent, of which the tri- 
colored flag waving against the sky from the central turrets was 
the highest point. As we approached, we noticed an occasional 
flash in the sun, and a stir of bright colors, through the broad 
deep court between the wings, which, as we advanced nearer, 
proved to be a body of about two or three thousand lancers and 
troops of the line under review. The effect was indescribably fine. 
The gay uniforms, the hundreds of tall lances, each with its red 
flag flying in the wind, the imposing crescent of architecture in 
which the array was embraced, the ringing echo of the grand 
military music from the towers — and all this intoxication for the 
positive senses fused with the historical atmosphere of the place, 
the recollection of the king and queen, whose favorite residence it- 
had been (the unfortunate Louis and Marie Antoinette), of the 
celebrated women who had lived in their separate palaces within 



58 THE TRIANONS. 



its grounds, of the genius and chivalry of Court after Court that 
had made it, in turn, the scene of their brilliant follies, and, over 
all, Napoleon, who must have rode through its gilded gates with 
the thought of pride that he was its imperial master by the royal- 
ty of his great nature alone — it was in truth, enough, the real and 
the ideal, to dazzle the eyes of a simple republican. 

After gazing at the fascinating show for an hour, we took a guide 
and entered the palace. We were walked through suite after suite 
of cold apartments, desolately splendid with gold and marble, 
and crowded with costly pictures, till I was sick and weary of 
magnificence. The guide went before, saying over his rapid 
rigmarole of names and dates, giving us about three minutes to a 
room in which there were some twenty pictures, perhaps, of which 
he presumed he had told us all that was necessary to know. 
I fell behind, after a while ; and, as a considerable English party 
had overtaken and joined us, I succeeded in keeping one room in 
the rear, and enjoying the remainder in my own way. 

The little marble palace, called " Petit Trianon," built for 
Madame Pompadour in the garden grounds, is a beautiful affair, 
full of what somebody calls " affectionate-looking rooms ;" and 
" Grand Trianon," built also on the grounds at the distance of 
half a mile, for Madame Maintenon, is a very lovely spot, made 
more interesting by the preference given to it over all other places 
by Marie Antoinette. Here she amused herself with her Swiss 
village. The cottages and artificial "mountains" ("ten feet high, 
perhaps) are exceedingly pretty models in miniature, and proba- 
bly illustrate very fairly the ideas of a palace-bred fancy upon 
natural scenery. There are glens and grottoes, and rocky beds 
for brooks that run at will (" les rivieres a volonte, " the guide 
called them), and trees set out upon the crags at most uncom- 



JOSEPHINE'S BOUDOIR. 59 



fortable angles, and every contrivance to make a lovely lawn as 
inconveniently like nature as possible. The Swiss families, how- 
ever, must have been very amusing. Brought fresh from their 
wild country, and ^set down in these pretty mock cottages, with 
orders to live just as they did in their own mountains, they must 
have been charmingly puzzled. In the midst of the village 
stands an exquisite little Corinthian temple ; and our guide 
informed us that the cottage which the Queen occupied at her 
Swiss tea-parties was furnished at an expense of sixty thousand 
francs — two not very Switzer-like circumstances. 

It was in the little palace of Trianon that Napoleon signed his 
divorce from Josephine. The guide showed us the room, and the 
table on which he wrote. I have seen nothing that brousrht me 
so near Napoleon. There is no place in France that could have 
for me a greater interest. It is a little boudoir, adjoining the state 
sleeping-room, simply furnished, and made for familiar retirement, 
not for show. The single sofa — the small round table— the 
enclosing, tent-like curtains — the modest, unobtrusive elegance 
of ornaments, and furniture, give it rather the look of a retreat, 
fashioned by the tenderness and taste of private life, than any 
apartment in a royal palace. I felt unwilling to leave it. My 
thoughts were too busy. What was the strongest motive of that 
great man in this most affecting and disputed action of his life ? 

After having been thridded through the palaces, we had a few 
moments left for the grounds. They are magnificent beyond de- 
scription. We know very little of this thing in America, as an 
aFt ; but it is one, I have come to think, that, in its requisition 
of genius, is scarce inferior to architecture. Certainly the three 
palaces of Versailles together did not impress me so much as the 
single view from the upper terrace of the gardens. It stretches 



60 TIME AND MONEY AT PARIS. 



clear over the horizon. You stand on a natural eminence that 
commands the whole country, and the plan seems to you like 
some work of the Titans. The long sweep of the avenue, with a 
breadth of descent that at the first glance takes away your breath, 
stretching its two lines of gigantic statues and vases to the water 
level ; the wide, slumbering canal at its foot, carrying on the eye 
to the horizon, like a river of an even flood lying straight through 
the bosom of the landscape : the side avenues almost as exten- 
sive ; the palaces in the distant grounds, and the strange union 
altogether, to an American, of as much extent as the eye can 
reach, cultivated equally with the trim elegance of a garden — all 
these, combining together, form a spectacle which nothing but 
nature's royalty of genius could design, and fto descend ungrace- 
fully from the climax) which only the exactions of an unnatural 
royalty could pay for. 



I think the most forcible lesson one learns at Paris is the 
value of time and money. I have always been told, erroneously, 
that it was a place to waste both. You could do so much with 
another hour, if you had it, and buy so much with another dollar, 
if you could afford it, that the reflected economy upon what you 
can command, is inevitable. As to the worth of time, for in- 
stance, there are some twelve or fourteen gratuitous lectures 
every day at the Sorbonne, the School of Medicine and the College 
of France, by men like Cuvier, Say, Spurzheim, and others, each, 
in his professed pursuit, the most eminent perhaps in the world j 
and there are the Louvre, and the Royal Library, and the Ma* 



WIVES AND FUEL. gj 



zarin Library, and similar public institutions, all open to gratuit- 
ous use, with obsequious attendants, warm rooms, materials for 
writing, and perfect seclusion ; to say nothing of the thousand 
interesting but less useful resorts with which Paris abounds, such 
as exhibitions of flowers, porcelains, mosaics, and curious handi- 
work of every description, and (more amusing and time-killing 
still) the never-ending changes of sights in the public places, 
from distinguished foreigners down to miracles of educated mon- 
keys. Life seems most provokingly short as you look at it. 
Then, for money, you are more puzzled how to spend a poor 
pitiful franc in Paris (it will buy so many things you want) than 
you would be in America with the outlay of a month's income. 
Be as idle and extravagant as you will, your idle hours look you 
in the face as they pass, to know whether, in spite of the increase 
of their value, you really mean to waste them ; and the money 
that slipped through your pocket you know not how at home, 
sticks embarrassed to your fingers, from the mere multiplicity of 
demands made for it. There are shops all over Paris called the 
" Vingt-cinq-sons," where every article is fixed at that price — 
twenty five cents I They contain everything you want 4 , except a 
wife and fire-wood — the only two things difficult to be got in 
France. (The latter, with or without a pun, is much the dearer 
of the two.) I wonder that they are not bought out, and sent 
over to America on speculation. There is scarce an article in 
them that would not be held cheap with us at five times its pur- 
chase. There are bronze standishes for ink, sand, and wafers, 
pearl paper-cutters, spice-lamps, decanters, essence-bottles, sets 
of china, table-bells of all devices, mantel ornaments, vases of 
artificial flowers, kitchen utensils, dog-collars, canes, guard-chains, 



62 ONE PRICE SHOPS. 



chessmen, whips, hammers, brushes, and everything that is either 
convenient or pretty. You might freight a ship with them, and 
all good and well finished, at twenty-five cents the set or article ! 
You would think the man were joking, to walk through his 
shop. 



LETTER VIII. 

DR. BOWRING AMERICAN ARTISTS BRUTAL AMUSEMENT, ETC. 

I have met Dr. Bo wring in Paris, and called upon him to- 
day with Mr. Morse, by appointment. The translator of the 
" Ode to the Deity" (from the Russian of Derzhavin) could not 
by any accident be an ordinary man, and I anticipated great 
pleasure in his society. He received us at his lodgings in the 
Place Vendome. I was every way pleased with him. His know- 
ledge of our country and its literature surprised me, and I could 
not but be gratified with the unprejudiced and well-informed in- 
terest with which he discoursed on our government and institu- 
tions. He expressed great pleasure at having seen his ode in 
one of our schoolbooks (Pierpont's Reader, I think), and assured 
us that the promise to himself of a visit to America was one of 
his brightest anticipations. This is not at all an uncommon feel- 
ing, by the way, among the men of talent in Paris ; and I am 
pleasingly surprised, everywhere, with the enthusiastic hopes ex- 
pressed for the success of our experiment in liberal principles. 
Dr. Bowling is a slender man, a little above the middle height, 
with a keen, inquisitive expression of countenance, and a good 
forehead, from which the hair is combed straight back all round, 



64 MR. COOPER. 



in the style of the Cameronians. His manner is all life, and his 
motion and gesture nervously sudden and angular. He talks 
rapidly, but clearly, and uses beautiful language — concise, and 
full of select expressions and vivid figures. His conversation in 
this particular was a constant surprise. He gave us a great deal 
of information, and when we parted, inquired my route of travel, 
and offered me letters to his friends, with a cordiality very un- 
usual on this side the Atlantic. 



It is a cold but common rule with travellers in Europe to 
avoid the society of their own countrymen. In a city like Paris, 
where time and money are both so valuable, every additional 
acquaintance, pursued either for etiquette or intimacy, is felt, 
and one very soon learns to prefer his advantage to any tendency 
of his sympathies. The infractions upon the rule, however, are 
very delightful, and, at the general reunion at our ambassador's 
on Wednesday evening, or an occasional one at Lafayette's, the 
look of pleasure and relief at beholding familiar faces, and hear- 
ing a familiar language once more, is universal. I have enjoyed 
this morning the double happiness of meeting an American circle, 
around an American breakfast. Mr. Cooper had invited us 
(Morse, the artist, Dr. Howe, a gentleman of the navy, and my- 
self). Mr. C. lives with great hospitality, and in all the comfort 
of American habits ; and to find him as he is always found, with 
his large family about him, is to get quite back to the atmosphere 
of our country. The two or three hours we passed at his table 
were, of course, delightful. It should endear Mr. Cooper to the 
hearts of his countrymen, that he devotes all his influence, and 



MR. GREENOUGH. 65 



no inconsiderable portion of his large income, to the encourage- 
ment of American artists. It would be natural enough, after 
being so long abroad, to feel or affect a preference for the works 
of foreigners ; but in this, as in his political opinions, most de- 
cidedly, he is eminently patriotic. We feel this in Europe, 
where we discern more clearly by comparison the poverty of our 
country in the arts, and meet, at the same time, American artists 
of the first talent, without a single commission from home for 
original works, copying constantly for support. One of Mr. 
Cooper's purchases, the " Cherubs," by Greenough, has been 
sent to the United States, and its merit was at once acknowledged. 
It was done, however (the artist, who is here, informs me), under 
every disadvantage of feeling and circumstances ; and, from what 
I have seen and am told by others of Mr. Greenough, it is, I am 
confident, however beautiful, anything but a fair specimen of his 
powers. His peculiar taste lies in a bolder range, and he needs 
only a commission from government to execute a work which 
will begin the art of sculpture nobly in our country. 



My curiosity led me into a strange scene to-day. I had ob- 
served for some time among the placards upon the walls an adver- 
tisement of an exhibition of " fighting animals," at the Barriere 
du Combat. I am disposed to see almost any sight once, particu- 
larly where it is, like this, a regular establishment, and, of course, 
an exponent of the popular taste. The place of the " Combats 
des Animaux^' is in one of the most obscure suburbs, outside the 
walls, and I found it with difficulty. After wandering about in 
dirty lanes for an hour or two, inquiring for it in vain, the cries 



66 FIGHTING ANIMALS. 



of the animals directed me to a walled place, separated from the 
other houses of the suburb, at the gate of which a man was 
blowing a trumpet. I purchased a ticket of an oM woman who 
sat shivering in the porter's lodge ; and, finding I was an hour 
too early for the fights, I made interest with a savage-looking 
fellow, who was carrying in tainted meat, to see the interior of 
the establishment. I followed him through a side gate, and we 
passed into a narrow alley, lined with stone kennels, to each of 
which was confined a powerful dog, with just length of chain 
enough to prevent him from reaching the tenant of the opposite 
hole. There were several of these alleys, containing, I should 
think, two hundred dogs in all. They were of every breed of 
strength and ferocity, and all of them perfectly frantic with rage 
or hunger, with the exception of a pair of noble-looking black 
dogs, who stood calmly at the mouths of their kennels ; the rest 
struggled and howled incessanfly, straining every niuscle to 
reach us, and resuming their fierceness toward each other when 
we had passed by. They all bore, more or less, the marks. of 
severe battles ; one or two with their noses split open, and still 
unhealed ; several with their necks bleeding and raw, and galled 
constantly with the iron collar, and many with broken legs, but 
all apparently so excited as to be insensible to suffering. After 
following my guide very unwillingly through the several alleys, 
deafened with the barking and howling of the savage occupants, 
I was taken to the department of wild animals. Here were all 
the tenants of the menagerie, kept in dens, opening by iron 
doors upon the pit in which they fought. Like the dogs, they 
were terribly wounded ; one of the bears especially, whose mouth 
was torn all off from his jaws, leaving his teeth perfectly exposed, 
and red with the continually exuding blood. In one of the dens 



THE DOG PIT. 67 



lay a beautiful deer, with one of bis haunches severely mangled, 
who, the man told me, had been hunted round the pit by the 
dogs but a day or two before. He looked up at us, with his 
large soft eye, as we passed, and, lying on the damp stone floor, 
with his undressed wounds festering in the chilly atmosphere of 
mid-winter, he presented a picture of suffering which made me 
ashamed to the soul of my idle curiosity. 

The spectators began to collect, and the pit was cleared. Two 
thirds of those in the amphitheatre were Englishmen, most of 
whom were amateurs, who had brought dogs of their own to pit 
against the regular mastiffs of the establishment. These were 
despatched first. A strange dog was brought in by the collar, 
and loosed in the arena, and a trained dog let in upon him. It 
was a cruel business. The sleek, well-fed, good-natured animal 
was no match for the exasperated, hungry savage he was com- 
pelled to encounter. One minute, in all the joy of a release 
from his chain, bounding about the pit, and fawning upon his 
master, and the next attacked by a furious mastiff, who was 
taught to fasten on him at the first onset in a way that deprived 
him at once of his strength ; it was but a murderous exhibition 
of cruelty. The combats between two of the trained dogs, how- 
ever, were more equal. These succeeded to the private contests, 
and were much more severe and bloody. There was a small 
terrier among them, who disabled several dogs successively, by 
catching at their fore-legs, and breaking them instantly with a 
powerful jerk of his body. I was very much interested in one of 
the private dogs, a large yellow animal, of a noble expression of 
countenance, who fought several times very unwillingly, but al- 
ways gallantly and victoriously. There was a majesty about him, 
which seemed to awe his antagonists. He was carried off in his 



68 FIGHTING DONKEY. 



master's arras, bleeding and exhausted, after punishing the best 
dogs of the establishment. 

The baiting of the wild animals succeeded the canine combats. 
Several dogs (Irish, I was told), of a size and ferocity such as I 
had never before seen, were brought in, and held in the leash 
opposite the den of the bear whose head was so dreadfully 
mangled. 

The door was then opened by the keeper, but poor bruin 
shrunk from the contest.' The dogs became unmanageable at 
the sight of him, however, and, fastening a chain to his collar, 
they drew him out by main force, and immediately closed the 
grating. He fought gallantly, and gave more wounds than he 
received, for his shaggy coat protected his body effectually. The 
keepers rushed in and beat off the dogs, when they had nearly 
finished peeling the remaining flesh from his head ; and the poor 
creature, perfectly blind and mad with pain, was dragged into 
his den again, to await another day of amusement ! 

I will not disgust you with more of these details. They 
fought several foxes and wolves afterward, and, last of all, one of 
the small donkeys of the country, a creature not so large as some 
of the dogs, was led in, and the mastiffs loosed upon her. The 
pity and indignation I felt at first at the cruelty of baiting so un- 
warlike an animal, I soon found was quite unnecessary. She 
was the severest opponent the dogs had yet found. She went 
round the arena at full gallop, with a dozen savage animals 
springing at her throat, but she struck right and left with her 
fore-legs, and at every kick with her heels threw one of them 
clear across the pit. One or two were left motionless on the 
field, and others carried off with their ribs kicked in, and their 
legs broken, while their inglorious antagonist escaped almost un- 



SPORTING ENGLISHMEN. 09 



hurt. One of the mastiffs fastened on her ear and threw her 
down, in the beginning of the chase, but she apparently received 
no other injury. 

I had remained till the close of the exhibition with some vio- 
lence to my feelings, and I was very glad to get away. Nothing 
would tempt me to expose myself to a similar disgust again. 
How the intelligent and gentlemanly Englishmen whom I saw 
there, and whom I have since met in the most refined society of 
Paris, can make themselves familiar, as they evidently were, 
with a scene so brutal, I cannot very well conceive. 






LETTER IX. 

MALIBRAN PARIS AT MIDNIGHT A MOB, ETC. 

Our beautiful and favorite Malibran is playing in Paris this 
•winter. I saw her last night in Desdemona. The other theatres 
are so attractive, between Taglioni, Robert le Diable (the new 
opera), Leontine Fay, and the political pieces constantly coming 
out that I had not before visited the Italian opera. Madame 
Malibran is every way changed. She sings, unquestionably, bet- 
ter than when in America. Her voice is firmer, and more under 
control, but it has lost that gushing wildness, that brilliant daring- 
ness of execution, that made her singing upon our boards so inde- 
scribably exciting and delightful. Her person is perhaps still more 
changed. The round, graceful fulness of her limbs and -features 
has yielded to a half-haggard look of care and exhaustion, and I 
could not but think that there was more than Desdemona's ficti- 
tious wretchedness in the expression of her face. Still, her fore- 
head and eyes have a beauty that is not readily lost, and she will 
be a strikingly interesting, and even splendid creature, as long as 
she can play. Her acting was extremely impassioned ; and in- 
the more powerful passages of her part, she exceeded everything 



MALIBRAN. 71 



I had conceived of the capacity of the human voice for pathos 
and melody. The house was crowded, and the applause was fre- 
quent and universal. 

Madame Malibran, as you probably know, is divorced from 
the man whose name she bears, and has married a violinist of 
the Italian orchestra. She is just now in a state of health that 
will require immediate retirement from the stage, and, indeed, 
has played already too long. She came forward after the curtain 
dropped, in answer to the continual demand of the audience, 
leaning heavily on Rubini, and was evidently so exhausted as to 
be scarcely able to stand. She made a single gesture, and was 
led off immediately, with her head drooping on her breast, amid 
the most violent acclamations. She is a perfect passion with the 
French, and seems to have out-charmed their usual caprice. 



It was a lovely night, and after the opera I walked home. I 
reside a long distance from the places of public amusement. Dr. 
Howe and myself had stopped at a cafe on the Italian Boule- 
vards an hour, and it was very late. The streets were nearly 
deserted — here and there a solitary cabriolet with the driver 
asleep under "his wooden apron, or the motionless figure of a 
municipal guardsman, dozing upon his horse, with his helmet and 
brazen armor glistening in the light of the lamps. Nothing has 
impressed me more, by the way, than a body of these men pass- 
ing me in the night; I have once or twice met the King return- 
ing from the theatre with a guard, and I saw them once at mid- 
night oh an extraordinary patrol winding through the arch into 
the Place Carrousel. Their equipments are exceedingly warlike 



72 PARIS AT A LATE HOUR. 



(helmets of brass, and coats of mail), and, with the gleam of the 
breast-plates through their horsemen's cloaks, the tramp of 
hoofs echoing through the deserted streets, and the silence and 
order of their march, it was quite a realization of the descriptions 
of chivalry. 

We kept along the Boulevards to the Rue Richelieu. A car- 
riage, with footmen in livery, had just driven up to Frascati's, 
and, as we passed, a young man of uncommon personal beauty 
jumped out and entered that palace of gamblers. By his dress 
he was just from a ball, and the necessity of excitement after a 
scene meant to be so gay, was an obvious if not a fair satire on 
the happiness of the " gay" circle in which he evidently moved. 
We turned down the Passage Panorama, perhaps the most 
crowded thoroughfare in all Paris, and traversed its long gallery 
without meeting a soul. The widely-celebrated patisserie of 
Felix, the first pastry-cook in the world, was the only shop open 
from one extremity to the other. The guard, in his gray capote, 
stood looking in at the window, and the girl, who had served the 
palates of half the fashion and rank of Paris since morning, sat 
nodding fast asleep behind the counter, paying the usual 
fatiguing penalty of notoriety. The clock struck two as we 
passed the fagade of the Bourse. This beautiful and central 
square is, night and day, the grand rendezvous of public vice ; 
and late as the hour was, its pave was still thronged with flaunt- 
ing and painted women of the lowest description, promenading 
without cloaks or bonnets, and addressing every passer-by. 

The Palais Royal lay in our way, just below the Bourse, and 
we entered its magnificent court with an exclamation of new 
pleasure. Its thousand lamps were all burning brilliantly, the 
long avenues of trees were enveloped in a golden atmosphere 



GLASS GALLERY. 73 



created by the bright radiation of light through the mist, the 
Corinthian pillars and arches retreated on either side from the 
eye in distinct and yet mellow perspective, the fountain filled the 
whole palace with its rich murmur, and the broad marble-paved 
galleries, so thronged by day, were as silent and deserted as if the 
drowsy gens cVarmcs standing motionless on their posts were the 
only living beings that inhabited it. It was a scene really of 
indescribable impressiveness. No one who has not seen this 
splendid palace, enclosing with its vast colonnades so much that 
is magnificent, can have an idea of its effect upon the imagina- 
tion. I had seen it hitherto only when crowded with the gay and 
noisy idlers of Paris, and the contrast of this with the utter soli- 
tude it now presented — not a single footfall to be heard on its 
floors, yet every lamp burning bright, and the statues and flowers 
and fountains all illuminated as if for a revel — was one of the 
most powerful and captivating that I have ever witnessed. We 
loitered slowly down one of the long galleries, and it seemed to 
me more like some creation of enchantment than the public haunt 
it is of pleasure and merchandise. A single figure, wrapped in a 
cloak, passed hastily by us and entered the door to one of the 
celebrated " hells," in which the playing scarce commences till 
this hour — but we met no other human being. 

We passed on from the grand court to the Galerie Nemours. 
This, as you may find in the descriptions, is a vast hall, standing 
between the east and west courts of the Palais Royal. It is 
sometimes called the "glass gallery." The roof is of glass, and 
the shops, with fronts entirely of windows, are separated only by 
long mirrors, reaching in the shape of pillars from the roof to the 
floor. The pavement is tesselated, and at either end stand two 
columns completing its form, and dividing it from the other 
4 



74 CLOUD AND SUNSHINE. 



galleries into which it opens. The shops are among the 
costliest in Paris ; and what with the vast proportions of the hall, 
its beautiful and glistening material, and the lightness and grace 
of its architecture, it is, even when deserted, one of the most 
fairy-like places in this fantastic city. It is the lounging place 
of military men particularly ; and every evening from six to mid- 
night, it is thronged by every class of gayly dressed people, 
officers off duty, soldiers, polytechnic scholars, ladies, and 
strangers of every costume and complexion, promenading to and 
fro in the light of the cafes and the dazzling shops, sheltered 
completely from the weather, and enjoying, without expense or 
ceremony, a scene more brilliant than the most splendid ball- 
room in Paris. We lounged up and down the long echoing 
pavement an hour. It was like some kingly " banquet hall 
deserted." The lamps burned dazzlingly bright, the mirrors 
multiplied our figures into shadowy and silent attendants, and 
our voices echoed from the glittering roof in the utter stillness of 
the hour, as if we had broken in, Thalaba-like, upon some magical 
palace of silence. 

It is singular how much the differences of time and weather 
affect scenery. The first sunshine I saw in Paris, unsettled all 
my previous impressions completely. I had seen every place of 
interest through the dull heavy atmosphere of a week's rain, and 
it was in such leaden colors alone that the finer squares and 
palaces had become familiar to me. The effect of a clear sun 
upon them was wonderful. The sudden gilding of the dome of 
the Invalides by Napoleon must have been something like it. I 
took advantage of it to see everything over again, and it seemed 
to me like another city. I never realized so forcibly the beauty 
of sunshine. Architecture, particularly, is nothing without it. 



GENERAL ROMARINO. 75 



Everything looks heavy and flat. The tracery of the windows 
and relievos, meant to be definite and airy, appears clumsy and 
confused, and the whole building flattens into a solid mass, 
without design or beauty. 



I have spent the whole day in a Paris mob. The arrival of 
General Romarino and some of his companions from Warsaw, 
gave the malcontents a plausible opportunity of expressing their 
dislike to the measures of government ; and, under cover of a 
public welcome to this distinguished Pole, they assembled in im- 
mense numbers at the Port St. Denis, and on the Boulevard 
Montinartre. It was very exciting altogether. The cavalary 
were out, and patroled the streets in companies, charging upon 
the crowd wherever there was a stand ; the troops of the line 
marched up and down the Boulevards, continually dividing the 
masses of people, and forbidding any one to stand still. The 
shops were all shut, in anticipation of an affray. The students 
endeavored to cluster, and resisted, as far as they dared, the 
orders of the soldiery ; and from noon till night there was every 
prospect of a quarrel. The French are a fine people under 
excitement. Their handsome and ordinarily heartless faces be- 
come very expressive under the stronger emotions ; and their 
picturesque dresses and violent gesticulation, set off a popular 
tumult exceedingly. I have been highly amused all day, and 
have learned a great deal of what it is very difficult for a for- 
eigner to acquire — the language of French passion. They express 
themselves very forcibly when angry. The constant irritation 
kept up by the intrusion of the cavalry upon the sidewalks, and 



76 PARISIAN STUDENTS. 



the rough manner of dispersing gentlemen by sabre- blows and 
kicks with the stirrup, gave me sufficient opportunity of judging. 
I was astonished, however, that their summary mode of proceeding 
was borne at all. It is difficult to mix in such a vast body, and 
not catch its spirit, and I found myself, without knowing why, or 
rather with a full conviction that the military measures were 
necessary and right, entering with all my heart into the rebellious 
movements of the students, and boiling with indignation at every 
dispersion by force. The students of Paris are probably the 
worst subjects the king has. They are mostly young men of from 
twenty to twenty-five, full of bodily vigor and enthusiasm, and 
excitable to the last degree. Many of them are Germans, and 
no small proportion Americans. They make a good amalgam 
for a mob, dress being the last consideration, apparently, with a 
medical or law student in Paris. I never saw such a collection 
of atrocious-looking fellows as are to be met at the lectures. The 
polytechnic scholars, on the other hand, are the finest-looking 
body of young men I ever saw. Aside from their uniform, which 
is remarkably neat and beautiful, their figures and faces seem 
picked for spirit and manliness. They have always a distinguish- 
ed air in a crowd, and it is easy, after seeing them, to imagine 
the part they played as leaders in the revolution of the three 
days. 

Contrary to my expectation, night came on without any 
serious encounter. One or two individuals attempted to resist 
the authority of the troops, and were considerably bruised; and 
one young man, a student, had three of his fingers cut oflf by the 
stroke of a dragoon's sabre. Several were arrested, but by eight 
o'clock all was quiet, and the shops on the Boulevards once more 
exposed their tempting goods, and lit up their brilliant mirrors 



TUMULT ENDED. 77 

without fear. The people thronged to the theatres to see the 
political pieces, and evaporate their excitement in cheers at the 
liberal allusions ; and so ends a tumult that threatened danger, 
but operated, perhaps, as a healthful vent for the accumulating 
disorders of public opinion. 



LETTER X. 

GARDEN OF THE TUILERIES FASHIONABLE DRIVES FRENCH 

OMNIBUSES CHEAP RIDING SIGHTS STREET-BEGGARS IM- 
POSTORS, ETC. 

The garden of the Tuileries is an idle man's paradise. Mag- 
nificent as it is in extent, sculptures, and cultivation, we all know 
that statues may be too dumb, gravel walks too long and level, 
and trees and flowers and fountains a little too Platonic, with any 
degree of beauty. But the Tuileries are peopled at all hours of 
sunshine with, to me, the most lovely objects in the world — 
children. You may stop a minute, perhaps, to look at the 
thousand gold fishes in the basin under the palace-windows, or 
follow the swans for a single voyage round the fountain in the 
broad avenue — but you will sit on your hired chair (at this sea- 
son) under the shelter of the sunny wall, and gaze at the children 
chasing about, with their attending Swiss maids, till your heart 
has outwearied your eyes, or the palace-clock strikes five. I 
have been there repeatedly since I have been in Paris, and have 
seen nothing like the children. They move my heart always-, 



FRENCH CHILDREN. • 79 



more than anything under heaven ; but a French child, with an 
accent that all your paid masters cannot give, and manners, in the 
midst of its romping, that mock to the life the air and courtesy 
for which Paris has a name over the world, is enough to make 
one forget Napoleon, though the column of Vendome throws its 
shadow within sound of their voices. Imagine sixty-seven acres 
of beautiful creatures (that is the extent of the garden, and I 
have not seen such a thing as an ugly French child) — broad ave- 
nues stretching away as far as you can see, covered with little 
foreigners (so they seem to me), dressed in gay colors, and laugh- 
ing and romping and talking French, in all the amusing mixture 
of baby passions and grown-up manners, and answer me — is it 
not a sight better worth seeing than all the grand palaces that 
shut it in ? 

The Tuileries are certainly very magnificent, and, to walk 
across from the Seine to the Rue Rivoli, and look up the endless 
walks and under the long perfect arches cut through the trees, 
may give one a very pretty surprise for once — but a winding lane 
is a better place to enjoy the loveliness of green leaves, and a 
single New England elm, letting down its slender branches to the 
ground in the inimitable grace of nature, has, to my eye, more 
beauty than all the clipped vistas from the king's palace to the 
Arc de P Etoile, the Champs Elysces inclusive. 

One of the finest things in Paris, by the way, is the view from 
the terrace in front of the palace to this " Arch of Triumph," 
commenced by Napoleon at the extremity of the " Elysian 
Fields," a single avenue of about two miles. The part beyond 
the gardens is the fashionable drive, and, by a saunter on horse- 
back to the Bois de Boulogne, between four and five, on a 
pleasant day, one may see all the dashing equipages in Paris. 



SO ROYAL EQU [PAGES. 



Broadway, however, would eclipse everything here, either for 
beauty of construction or appointments. Oar carriages are 
every way handsomer and better hung, and the horses are 
harnessed more compactly and gracefully. The lumbering 
vehicles here make a great show, it is true — for the box, with 
its heavy hammer-cloth, is level with the top, and the coachman 
and footmen and outriders are very striking in their bright 
liveries ; but the elegant, convenient, light-running establishments 
of Philadelphia and New York, excel them, out of all comparison, 
for taste and fitness. The best driving ] have seen is by the 
king's whips, and really it is beautiful to see his retinue on the 
road, four or five coaches and six, with footmen and outriders 
in scarlet liveries, and the finest horses possible for speed and 
action. His majesty generally takes the outer edge of the 
Champs Elijsees, on the bank of the river, and the rapid 
glimpses of the bright show through the breaks in the wood, are 
exceedingly picturesque. 

There is nothing in Paris that looks so outlandish to my eye as 
the common vehicles. I was thinking of it this morning as I 
stood waiting for the St. Sulpice omnibus, at the corner of the 
Rue Vivienne, the great thoroughfare between the Boulevards 
and the Palais Royal. There was the hack-cabriolet lumbering 
by in the fashion of two centuries ago, with a horse and harness 
that look equally ready to drop in pieces ; the hand-cart with a 
stout dog harnessed under the axle-tree, drawing with twice the 
strength of his master; the market-waggon, driven always by 
women, and drawn generally by a horse and mule abreast, the 
horse of the Norman breed immensely large, and the mule about 
the size of a well-grown bull-dog ; a vehicle of which I have not 
yet found out the name, a kind of demi-omnibns, with two wheels 



FRENCH DRIVING. 81 



and a single horse, and carrying nine ; and last, but not least 
amusing, a small close carriage for one person, swung upon two 
wheels and drawn by a servant, very much used, apparently, by 
elderly women and invalids, and certainly most admirable conve- 
niences either for the economy or safety of getting about a city. 
It would be difficult to find an American servant who would draw 
in harness as they do here ; and it is amusing to see a stout, well- 
dressed fellow, strapped to a carriage, and pulling along the 
paves, sometimes at a jog-trot, while his master or mistress sits 
looking unconcernedly out of the window. 

I am not yet decided whether the French are the best or the 
worst drivers in the world. If the latter they certainly have 
most miraculous escapes. A cab-driver never pulls the reins 
except upon great emergencies, or for a right-about turn, and 
his horse has a most ludicrous aversion to a straight line. The 
streets are built inclining toward the centre, with the gutter in 
the middle, and it is the habit of all cabriolet-horses to run down 
one side and up the other constantly at such sudden angles that 
it seems to you they certainly will go through the shop, windows. 
This, of course, is very dangerous to foot-passengers in a city 
where there are no side-walks ; and, as a consequence, the average 
number of complaints to the police of Paris for people killed by 
careless driving, is about four hundred annually. There are 
probably twice the number of legs broken. One becomes vexed 
in riding with these fellows, and I have once or twice undertaken 
to get into a French passion, and insist upon driving myself. 
But I have never yet met with an accident. " Gar-r-r-r-e /" 
sings out the driver, rolling the word off his tongue like a bullet 
from a shovel, but never thinking to lift his loose reins from the 
dasher, while the frightened passenger, without looking round, 



82 CITY RIDING. 



makes for the first door with an alacrity that shows a habit of 
expecting very little from the cocher^s skill. 

Biding is very cheap in Paris, if managed a little. The city is 
traversed constantly in every direction by omnibuses, and you 
may go from the Tuileries to Pere la Chaise, or from St. 
Sulpice to the Italian Boulevards (the two diagonals), or take 
the " Tous les Boulevards'' 1 and ride quite round the city for six 
sous the distance. The " fiacre" is like our own hacks, except 
that you pay but " twenty sous the course," and fill the vehicle 
with your friends if you please ; and, more cheap and comfortable 
still, there is the universal cabriolet, which for fifteen sous the 
course," or " twenty the hour," will give you at least three times 
the value of your money, with the advantage of seeing ahead and 
talking bad French with the driver. 

Everything in France is either grotesque or picturesque. I 
have been struck with it this morning, while sitting at my 
window, looking upon the close inner court of the hotel. One 
would suppose that a pave between four high walls, would offer 
very little to seduce the eye from its occupation ; but on the con- 
trary, one's whole time may be occupied in watching the various 
sights presented in constant succession. First comes the itinerant 
cobbler, with his seat and materials upon his back, and coolly 
selecting a place against the wall, opens his shop under your 
window, and drives his trade, most industriously, for half an hour. 
If you have anything to mend, he is too happy ; if not he has not 
lost his time, for he pays no rent, and is all the while at work. 
He packs up again, bows to the concierge, as politely as his load 
will permit, and takes his departure, in the hope to find your 
shoes more worn another day. Nothing could be more striking 
than his whole appearance. He is met in the gate, perhaps, by 



PARISIAN PICTURESQUE. 83 



an old clothes man, who will buy or sell, and compliment yon for 
nothing, cheapening your coat by calling the Virgin to witness 
that your shape is so genteel that it will not fit one man in a 
thousand ; or by a family of singers, with a monkey to keep time ; 
or a regular beggar, who, however, does not dream of asking 
charity till he has done something to amuse you ; after these, 
perhaps, will follow a succession of objects singularly peculiar to 
this fantastic metropolis ; and if one could separate from the poor 
creatures the knowledge of the cold and hunger they suffer, 
wandering about, houseless, in the most inclement weather, it 
would be easy to imagine it a diverting pantomime, and give them 
the poor pittance they ask, as the price of an amused hour. An 
old man has just gone from the court who comes regularly twice a 
week, with a long beard, perfectly white, and a strange kind of 
an equipage. It is an organ, set upon a rude carriage, with four 
small wheels, and drawn by a mule, of the most diminutive size, 
looking (if it were not for the venerable figure crouched upon the 
seatj like some roughly-contrived plaything. The whole affair, 
harness and all, is evidently his own work ; and it is affecting to 
see the difficulty, and withal, the habitual apathy with which the 
old itinerant fastens his rope-reins beside him, and dismounts to 
grind his one — solitary — eternal tune, for charity. 

Among the thousands of wretched objects in Paris (they make 
the heart sick with their misery at every turn), there is, here and 
there, one of an interesting character ; and it is pleasant to select 
them, and make a habit of your trifling gratuity. Strolling 
about, as I do, constantly, and letting everybody and everything 
amuse me that will, I have made several of these penny-a-day 
acquaintances, and find them very agreeable breaks to the heart- 
less solitude of a crowd. There is a little fellow who stands by 



84 BEGGARS DECEPTION. 

the gate of the Tuileries, opening to the Place Vendome, who, 
with all the rags and dirt of a street-boy, begs with an air of 
superiority that is absolutely patronizing. One feels obliged to 
the little varlet for the privilege of giving to him — his smile 
and manner are s'o courtly. His face is beautiful, dirty as it is ; 
his voice is clear, and unaffectecl, and his thin lips have an 
expression of high-bred contempt, that amuses me a little, and 
puzzles me a great deal. I think he must have gentleman's 
blood in his veins, though he possibly came indirectly by it. 
There is a little Jewess hano-ino; about the Louvre, who besrs 
with her dark eyes very eloquently ; and in the Rue de la Paix 
there may be found at all hours, a melancholy, sick-looking 
Italian boy, with his hand in his bosom, whose native language 
and picture-like face are a diurnal pleasure to me, cheaply 
bought with the poor trifle which makes him happy. It is 
surprising how many devices there are in the streets for attract- 
ing attention and pity. There is a woman always to be seen 
upon the Boulevards, playing a solemn tune on a violin, with a 
child as pallid as ashes, lying, apparently, asleep in her lap. I 
suspected, after seeing it once or twice, that it was wax, and a 
day or two since I satisfied myself of the fact, and enraged the 
mother excessively by touching its cheek. It represents a sick 
chill to the life, and any one less idle and curious would be 
deceived. I have often seen people give her mone} T with the 
most unsuspecting look of sympathy, though it would be natural 
enough to doubt the maternal kindness of keeping a dying child 
in the open air in mid-winter. Then there is a woman without 
hands, making braid with wonderful adroitness ; and a man with- 
out legs or arms, singing, with his hat set appealingly on the 
ground before him ; and cripples, exposing their abbreviated 



GENTEEL BEGGARS. 85 



limbs, and telling their stories over and over, with or without 
listeners, from morning till night ; and every description of appeal 
to the most acute sympathies, mingled with all the gayety, show, 
and fashion, of the most crowded promenade in Paris. 

In the present dreadful distress of trade, there are other still 
more painful cases of misery. It is not uncommon to be ad- 
dressed in the street by men of perfectly respectable appearance, 
whose faces bear every mark of strong mental struggle, and often 
of famishing necessity, with an appeal for the smallest sum that 
will buy food. The look of misery is so general, as to mark the 
whole population. It has struck me most forcibly everywhere, 
notwithstanding the gayety of the national character, and, I am 
told by intelligent Frenchmen, it is peculiar to the time, and felt 
and observed by all. Such things startle one back to nature 
sometimes. It is difficult to look away from the face of a starv- 
ing man, and see the splendid equipages, and the idle waste upon 
trifles, within his very sight, and reconcile the contrast with any 
belief of the existence of human pity — still more difficult, per- 
haps, to admit without reflection, the right of one human being 
to hold in a shut hand, at will, the very life and breath for which 
his fellow-creatures are perishing at his door. It is this that is 
visited back so terribly in the horrors of a revolution. 



LETTER XI. 

FOYETIER THE THRACIAN GLADIATOR MADEMOISELLE MARS 

DOCTOR FRANKLIN'S RESIDENCE IN PARIS ANNUAL BALL 

FOR THE POOR. 

I had the pleasure to-day of being introduced to the young 
sculptor Foyetier, the author of the new statue on the terrace 
of the Tuileries. Aside from his genius, he is interesting from a 
circumstance connected with his early history. He was a herd- 
driver in one of the provinces, and amused himself in his leisure 
moments with the carving of rude images, which he sold for a 
sous or two on market-days in the provincial town. The cele- 
brated Dr. Gall fell in with him accidentally, and felt of his head, 
en passant. The bump was there which contains his present 
greatness, and the phrenologist took upon himself the risk of his 
education in the arts. He is now the first sculptor, beyond all 
competition, in France. His " Spartacus," the Thracian gladi- 
ator, is the admiration of Paris. It stands in front of the palace, 
in the most conspicuous part of the regal gardens, and there are 
hundreds of people about the pedestal at all hours of the day. 



MADAME MARS. $7 



The gladiator has broken his chain, and stands with his weapon 
in his hand, every muscle and feature breathing action, his body 
thrown back, and his right foot planted powerfully for a spring. 
It is a gallant thing. One's blood stirs to look at it. 

Foyelier is a young man, I should think about thirty. He is 
small, very plain in appearance ; but he has a rapid, earnest eye, 
and a mouth of singular suavity of expression. I liked him ex- 
tremely. His celebrity seems not to have trenched a step on the 
nature of his character. His genius is everywhere allowed, and 
he works for the king altogether, his majesty bespeaking every- 
thing he attempts, even in the model ; but he is, certainly, of all 
geniuses, one of the most modest. 



The celebrated Mars has come out from her retirement once 
more, and commenced an engagement at the Theatre Frangais. 
I went a short time since to see her play in Tartuffe. This stage 
is the home of the true French drama. Here Talma played 
when he and Mademoiselle Mars were the delight of Napoleon 
and of France. I have had few gratifications greater than that 
of seeing this splendid woman re-appear in the place were she 
won her brilliant reputation. The play, too, was Moliere > s y and 
it was here that it was first performed. Altogether it was like 
something plucked back from history ; a renewal, as in a magic 
mirror, of glories gone by. 

I could scarce believe my eyes when she appeared as the " wife 
of Argon." She looked about twenty -five. Her step was light 
and graceful ; Her voice was as unlike that of a woman of sixty 
as could well be imagined; sweet, clear, and under a control 



88 FRANKLIN'S HOUSE. 



which gives her a power of expression I never had conceived 
before ; her mouth had the definite, firm play of youth ; her 
teeth (though the dentist might do that) were white and perfect; 
and her eyes can have lost none of their fire, I am sure. I never 
saw so quiet a player. Her gestures were just perceptible, no 
more ; and yet they were done so exquisitely at the right mo- 
ment — so unconsciously, as if she had not meant them, that they 
were more forcible than even the language itself. She repeatedly 
drew a low murmur of delight from the whole house with a single 
play of expression across her face, while the other characters were 
speaking, or by a slight movement of her fingers, in pantomimic 
astonishment or vexation. It was really something new to me. 
I had never before seen a first-rate female player in comedy. 
Leontine Fay is inimitable in tragedy ; but, if there be any com- 
parison between them, it is that this beautiful young creature 
overpowers the heart with her nature, while Mademoiselle Mars 
satisfies the uttermost demand of the judgment with her art. 



I yesterday visited the house occupied by Franklin while he 
was in France. It is one of the most beautiful country resi- 
dences in the neighborhood of Paris, standing on the elevated 
ground of Passy, and overlooking the whole city on one side, and 
the valley of the Seine for a long distance toward Versailles on 
the other. The house is otherwise celebrated. Madame de Genlis 
lived there while the present king was her pupil ; and Louis XV. 
occupied it six months for the country air, while under the inflic- 
tion of the gout — its neighborhood to the palace probably render- 
ing it preferable to the more distant chateaux of St. Cloud or 



BALL FOR THE POOR. 89 



Versailles. Its occupants would seem to have been various 
enough, without the addition of a Lieutenant-General of the 
British array, whose hospitality makes it delightful at present. 
The lightning-rod, which was raised by Franklin, and which was 
the first conductor used in France, is still standing. The gar- 
dens are large, and form a sort of terrace, with the house on the 
front edge. It must be one of the sweetest places in the world 
in summer. 



The great annual ball for the poor was given at the Academie 
Royalc, a few nights since. This is attended by the king and 
royal family, and is ordinarily the most splendid affair of the 
season. It is managed by twenty or thirty lady-patronesses, who 
have the control of the tickets ; and, though by no means ex- 
clusive, it is kept within very respectable limits ; and, if one is 
content to float with the tide, and forego dancing, is an unusually 
comfortable and well-behaved spectacle. 

I went with a large party at the early hour of eight. We fell 
into the train of carriages, advancing slowly between files of dra- 
goons, and stood before the door in our turn in the course of an 
hour. The staircases were complete orangeries, with immense 
mirrors at every turn, and soldiers on guard, and servants in 
livery, from top to bottom. The long saloon, lighted by ten 
chandeliers, was dressed and hung with wreaths as a receiving- 
ing-room ; and passing on through the spacious lobbies, which 
were changed into groves of pines and exotics, we entered upon 
the grand scene. The coup <PoeU would have astonished Aladdin. 
The theatre, which is the largest in Paris, and gorgeously built 



go THEATRICAL SPLENDOR. 

and ornamented, was thrown into one vast ball-room, ascending 
gradually from the centre to platforms raised at either end, one 
of which was occupied by the throne and seats for the king's 
family and suite. The four rows of boxes were crowded with 
ladies, and the house presented, from the floor to the paradis, 
one glittering and waving wall of dress, jewelry, and feathers. 
An orchestra of near a hundred musicians occupied the centre 
of the hall ; and on either side of them swept by the long, count- 
less multitudes of people, dressed with a union of taste and show ; 
while, instead of the black coats which darken the complexion of 
a party in a republican country, every other gentleman was in a 
gay uniform ; and polytechnic scholars, with their scarlet-faced 
coats, officers of the " National Guard" and the "line," gentle- 
men of the king's household, and foreign ministers, and attaches, 
presented a variety of color and splendor which nothing could 
exceed. 

The theatre itself was not altered, except by the platform oc- 
cupied by the king ; it is sufficiently splendid as it stands ; but 
the stage, whose area is much larger than that of the pit, was 
hung in rich drapery as a vast tent, and garnished to profusion 
with flags and arms. Along the sides, on a level with the lower 
row of boxes, extended galleries of crimson velvet, festooned with 
flowers. These were filled with ladies, and completed a circle 
about the house of beauty and magnificence, of which the king 
and his dazzling suite formed the corona. Chandeliers were hung 
close together from one end of the hall to the other. I com- 
menced counting them once or twice, but some bright face flit- 
t-ino- by in the dance interrupted me. An English girl near me 
counted fifty-five, and I think there must have been more. The 
blaze of light was almost painful. The air glittered, and the fine 



LOUIS PHILIPPE. 91 



grain of the most delicate complexions was distinctly visible. It 
is impossible to describe the effect of so much light and space 
and music crowded into one spectacle. The vastness of the hall, 
so long that the best sight could not distinguish a figure at the 
opposite extremity, and so high as to absorb and mellow the 
vibration of a hundred instruments — the gorgeous sweep of splen- 
dor from one platform to the other, absolutely drowning the eye 
in a sea of gay colors, nodding feathers, jewelry, and military 
equipment — the delicious music, the strange faces, dresses, and 
tongues, (one-half of the multitude at least being foreigners), the 
presence of the king, and the gallant show of uniforms in his 
conspicuous suite, combined to make up a scene more than suffi- 
ciently astonishing. I felt the whole night the smothering con- 
sciousness of senses too narrow — eyes, ears, language, all too 
limited for the demand made upon them. 

The king did not arrive till after ten. He entered by a silken 
curtain in the rear of the platform on which seats were placed for 
his family. The " Vive le Roi" was not so hearty as to drown 
the music, but his majesty bowed some twenty times very gra- 
ciously, and the good-hearted queen curtsied, and kept a smile 
on her excessively plain face, till I felt the muscles of my own 
ache for her. King Philippe looks anxious. By the remarks of 
the French people about me when he entered, he has reason for 
it. I observed that the polytechnic scholars all turned their 
backs upon him ; and one exceedingly handsome, spirited-look- 
ing boy, standing just at my side, muttered a " sacre /" and bit 
his lip, with a very revolutionary air, at the continuance of the 
acclamation. His majesty came down, and walked through the 
hall about midnight. His eldest son, the Duke of Orleans, a 
handsome, unoffending-looking youth of eighteen, followed him, 



92 DUKE OF ORLEANS. 



gazing round upon the crowd with his mouth open, and looking 
very much annoyed at his part of the pageant. The young duke 
has a good figure, and is certainly a very beautiful dancer. His 
mouth is loose and weak, and his eyes are as opaque as agates. 
He wore the uniform of the Garde JYationale, which does not be- 
come him. In ordinary gentleman's dress, he is a very authen- 
tical copy of a Bond-street dandy, and looks as little like a 
Frenchman as most of Stultz's subjects. He danced all the 
evening, and selected, very popularly decidedly the most vulgar 
women in the room, looking all the while as one who had been 
petted by the finest women in France (Leontine Fay among the 
number), might be supposed to look, under such an infliction. 
The king's second son, the Duke of Nemours, pursued the same 
policy. He has a brighter face than his brother, with hair almost 
white, and dances extremely well. The second daughter is 
also much prettier than the eldest. On the whole, the king's 
family is a very plain, though a very amiable one, and the people 
seem attached to them. 

These general descriptions, are, after all, very vague. Here I 
have written half a sheet with a picture in my mind of which you 
are getting no semblable idea. Language is a mere skeleton of 
such things. The Academie Royale should be borne over the 
water like the chapel of Loretto, and set down in Broadway with 
all its lights, music, and people, to give you half a notion of the 
u Bat en faveur des Pauvres." And so it is with everything 
except the little histories of one's own personal atmosphere, 
and that is the reason why egotism should be held virtuous in a« 
traveller, and the reason why one cannot study Europe at 
home. 

After getting our American party places, I abandoned myself 



YOUNG QUEEN OF PORTUGAL. 93 



to the strongest current, and went in search of "lions." The 
first face that arrested my eye was that of the Duchess 
D'Istria, a woman celebrated here for her extraordinary per- 
sonal beauty. 

Directly opposite this lovely dutchess, in the other stage-box, 
sat Donna Maria, the young Queen of Portugal, surrounded by 
her relatives. The ex-empress, her mother, was on her right, 
her grandmother on her left, and behind her some half dozen of 
her Portuguese cousins. She is a little girl of twelve or fourteen, 
with a fat, heavy face, and a remarkably pampered, sleepy look. 
She was dressed like an old woman, and gaped incessantly the 
whole evening. The box was a perfect blaze of diamonds. I 
never before realized the beauty of these splendid stones. The 
necks, heads, arms, and waists of the ladies royal were all 
streaming with light. The necklace of the empress mother parti- 
cularly flashed on the eye in every part of the house. By the 
unceasing exclamations of the women, it was an unusually bril- 
liant show, even here. The little Donna has a fine, well-rounded 
chin ; and when she smiled in return to the king's bow, I thought 
I could see more than a child's character in the expression of her 
mouth. I should think a year or two of mental uneasiness 
might let out a look of intelligence through her heavy features. 
She is likely to have it, I think, with the doubtful fortunes that 
seem to beset her. 

I met Don Pedro often in society before his departure upon his 
expedition. He is a short, well-made man, of great personal 
accomplishment, and a very bad expression, rather aggravated by 
an unfortunate cutaneous eruption. The first time I saw him, I 
was induced to ask who he was, from the apparent coldness and 
dislike with which he was treated by a lady whose beauty had 



94 DON PEDRO. 



strongly arrested my attention. He sat by her on a sofa in a 
very crowded party, and seemed to be saying something very ear- 
nestly, which made the lady's Spanish eyes flash fire, and brought 
a curl of very positive anger upon a pair of the loveliest lips 
imaginable. She was a slender, aristocratic-looking creature, and 
dressed most magnificently. After glancing at them a minute or 
two, I made up my mind that, from the authenticity of his dress 
and appointments, he was an Englishman, and that she was some 
French lady of rank whom he was particularly annoying with his 
addresses. On inquiry, the gentleman proved to be Don Pedro, 
and the lady the Countess de Lourle, his sister ! I have often 
met her since, and never without wondering how two of the same 
family could look so utterly unlike each other. The Count de 
Lourle is called the Adonis of Paris. He is certainly a very 
splendid fellow, and justifies the romantic admiration of his wife, 
who married him clandestinely, giving him her left hand in the 
ceremony, as is the etiquette, they say, when a princess marries 
below her rank. One can not help looking with great interest on 
a beautiful creature like this, who has broken away from the 
imposing fetters of a royal sphere, to follow the dictates of 
natural feeling. It does not occur so often in Europe that 
one may not sentimentalize about it without the charge of affect- 
ation. 

To return to the ball. The king bowed himself out a little 
after midnight, and with him departed most of the fat people, and 
all the little girls. This made room enough to dance, and the 
French set themselves at it in good earnest. I wandered about 
for an hour or two ; after wearying my imagination quite out in 
speculating on the characters and rank of people whom I never 
saw before and shall probably never see again, I mounted to the 



CLOSE OF THE BALL. 95 

paradis to take a last look down upon the splendid scene, and 
made my exit. I should be quite content never to go to such a 
ball again, though it was by far the most splendid scene of the 
kind I ever saw. 



LETTER XII. 

PLACE LOUIS XV. PANORAMIC VIEW OF PARIS A LITERARY 

CLUB DINNER THE GUESTS THE PRESIDENT — THE EXILED 

POLES, ETC. 

I have spent the day in a long stroll. The wind blew warm 
and delicious from the south this morning, and the temptation to 
abandon lessons and lectures was irresistible. Taking the Arc 
de V Etoih as my extreme point I yielded to all the leisurely hin- 
derances of shop-windows, beggars, book-stalls, and views by the 
way. Among the specimen-cards in an engraver's window I was 
amused at finding, in the latest Parisian fashion, "Hussein- 
Pacha, De.y cV Algiers." 

These delightful Tuileries ! We rambled through them (I had 
met a friend and countryman, and enticed him into my idle plans 
for the day), and amused ourselves with the never-failing beauty 
and grace of the French children for an hour. On the inner 
terrace we stopped to look at the beautiful hotel of Prince Polig- 
nac, facing the Tuileries, on the opposite bank. By the side of 
this exquisite little model of a palace stands the superb com- 



CHAMPS ELYSEES. 97 



mencement of Napoleon's ministerial hotel, breathing of his 
glorious conception in every line of its ruins. It is astonishing 
what a godlike impress that man left upon all he touched. 

Every third or fourth child in the gardens was dressed in the 
full uniform of the National Gruard — helmet, sword, epaulets, and 
all. They are ludicrous little caricatures, of course, but it inocu- 
lates them with love of the corps, and it would be better if that 
were synonymous with a love of liberal principals. The Garde, 
Nationale are supposed to be more than half "Carlists" at this 
moment. 

We passed out by the guarded gate of the Tuileries to the 
Place, Louis XV. This square is a most beautiful spot, as a 
centre of unequalled views, and yet a piece of earth so foully 
polluted with human blood probably does not exist on the face of 
the globe. It divides the Tuileries from the Champs JElysees, 
and ranges of course, in the long broad avenue of two miles, 
stretching between the king's palace and the Arc de P Etoile. 
It is but a list of names to write down the particular objects to 
be seen in such a view, but it commands, at the extremities of 
its radii, the most princely edifices, seen hence with the most ad- 
vantageous foregrounds of space and avenue, and softened by 
distance into the misty and unbroken surface of engraving. The 
king's palace is on one hand, Napoleon's Arch at a distance of 
nearly two miles on the other, Prince Talleyrand's regal dwelling 
behind, with the church of Madelaine seen through the Rue Royale, 
while before you, to the south, lies a picture of profuse splendor : 
the broad Seine, spanned by bridges that are the admiration of 
Europe, and crowded by specimens of architectural magnificence ; 
the Chamber of Deputies ; and the Palais Bourbon, approached 
by the Pont Louis XVI. with its gigantic statues and simple 



98 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 



majesty of structure ; and, rising over all, the grand dome of the 
"Invalides," which Napoleon gilded, to divert the minds of his 
subjects from his lost battle, and which Peter the Great admired 
more than all Paris beside. What a spot for a man to stand 
upon, with but one bosom to feel and one tongue to express his 
wonder ! 

And yet, of what, that should make a spot of earth sink to 
perdition, has it not been the theatre ? Here were beheaded the 
unfortunate Louis XVI. — his wife, Marie Antoinette — his kins- 
man, Philip duke of Orleans, and his sister Elizabeth ; and here 
were guillotined the intrepid Charlotte Corday, the deputy Brissot, 
and twenty of his colleagues, and all the victims of the revolution 
of 1793, to the amount of two thousand eight hundred ; and here 
Robespierre and his cursed crew met at last with their insufficient 
retribution ; and, as if it were destined to be the very blood-spot 
of the earth, here the fireworks, which were celebrating the mar- 
riage of the same Louis that was afterward brought hither to the 
scaffold, exploded, and killed fourteen hundred persons. It has 
been the scene, also, of several minor tragedies not worth men- 
tioning in such a connexion. Were \ a Bourbon, and as unpopu- 
lar as King Philippe I. at this moment, the view of the Place 
Louis XV. from my palace windows would very much disturb the 
beauty of the perspective. Without an equivoque, I should look 
with a very ominous dissatisfaction on the "Elysian fields" that 
lie beyond. 

We loitered slowly on to the Barrier Neuilly, just outside of 
which, and right before the city gates, stands the Triumphal Arch. 
It has the stamp of Napoleon — simple grandeur. The broad 
avenue from the Tuileries swells slowly up to it for two miles, and 
the view of Paris at its foot, even, is superb. We ascended to 



LITERARY DINNER. 99 



the unfinished roof, a hundred and thirty-five feet from the 
ground, and saw the whole of the mighty capital of France at a 
coup oVail — churches, palaces, gardens ; buildings heaped upon 
buildings clear over the edge of the horizon, where the spires of 
the city in which you stand are scarcely visible for the distance. 
I dined, a short time since, with the editors of the Revue 
Encyclopedique at their monthly reunion. This is a sort of club 
dinner, to which the eminent contributors of the review invite 
once a month all the strangers of distinction who happen to be in 
Paris. I owed my invitation probably to the circumstance of my 
living with Dr. Howe, who is considered the organ of American 
principles here, and whose force of character has given him a 
dagree of respect and prominence not often attained by foreigners. 
It was the most remarkable party, by far, that I had ever seen. 
There were nearly a hundred guests, twenty or thirty of whom 
were distinguished Poles, lately arrived from Warsaw. Generals 
Romarino and Langermann were placed beside the president, and 
another general, whose name is as difficult to remember as his 
face is to forget, and who is famous for having been the last on 
the field, sat next to the head seat. Near him were General 
Bernard and Dr. Bowring, with Sir Sidney Smith (covered with 
orders, from every quarter of the world), and the president of 
Colombia. After the usual courses of a French dinner, the presi- 
dent, Mons. Julien, a venerable man with snow-white hair, ad- 
dressed the company. He expressed his pleasure at the meeting, 
with the usual courtesies of welcome, and in the fervent manner 
of the old school of French politeness ; and then pausing a little, 
and lowering his voice, with a very touching cadence, he looked 
around to the Poles, and began to speak of their country. Every 
movement was instantly hushed about the table — the guests 



100 BOWRING AND OTHERS. 



leaned forward, some of them half rising in their earnestness to 
hear ; the old man's voice trembled, and sunk lower ; the Poles 
dropped their heads upon their bosoms, and the whole company 
were strongly affected. His manner suddenly changed at this 
moment, in a degree that would have seemed too dramatic, if the 
strong excitement had not sustained him. He spoke indignantly 
of the Russian barbarity toward Poland — assured the exiles of 
the strong sympathy felt by the gr^at mass of the French people 
in their cause, and expressed his confident belief that the struggle 
was not yet done, and the time was near when, with France at 
her back, Poland would rise and be free. He closed, amid 
tumultuous acclamation, and all the Poles near him kissed the old 
man, after the French manner, upon both his cheeks. „ 

This speech was followed by several others, much to the same 
effect. Dr. Bowring replied handsomely, in French, to some 
compliment paid to his efforts on the " question of reform," in 
England. Cesar Moreau, the great schemist, and founder of 
the Academie d? Industrie^ said a few very revolutionary things 
quite emphatically, rolling his fine visionary-looking eyes about 
as if he saw the " shadows cast before" of coming events ; and 
then rose a speaker, whom I shall never forget. He was a young- 
Polish noble, of about nineteen, whose extreme personal beauty 
and enthusiastic expression of countenance had particularly ar- 
rested my attention in the drawing-room, before dinner. His 
person was slender and graceful — his eye and mouth full of beau- 
ty and fire, and his manner had a quiet native superiority, that 
would have distinguished him anywhere. He had behaved very 
gallantly in the struggle, and some allusion had been made to him 
in one of the addresses. He rose modestly, and half unwillingly, 
and acknowledged the kind wishes for his country in language of 



THE POLES. 101 



great elegance. He then went on to speak of the misfortunes of 
Poland, and soon warmed into eloquence of the most vivid earn- 
estness and power. I never was more moved by a speaker — he 
seemed perfectly unconscious of everything but the recollections 
of his subject. His eyes swam with tears and flashed with 
indignation alternately, and his refined, spirited mouth assumed a 
play of varied expression, which, could it have been arrested, 
would have made a sculptor immortal. I can hardly write extrava- 
gantly of him, for all present were as much excited as myself. 
One ceases to wonder at the desperate character of the attempt 
to redeem the liberty of a land when he sees such specimens of 
its people. I have seen hundreds of Poles, of all classes, in Paris, 
and I have not yet met with a face of even common dulness 
among them. 

You have seen by the papers, I presume, that a body of several 
thousand Poles fled from Warsaw, after the defeat, and took 
refuge in the northern forests of Prussia. They gave up their 
arms under an assurance from the king that they should have all 
the rights of Prussian subjects. He found it politic afterward to 
recall his protection, and ordered them back to Poland. They 
refused to go, and were surrounded by a detachment of his army, 
and the orders given to fire upon them. The soldiers refused, 
and the Poles, taking advantage of the sympathy of the army, 
broke through the ranks, and escaped to the forest, where, at the 
last news, they were armed with clubs, and determined to defend 
themselves to the last. The consequence of a return to Poland 
would be, of course, an immediate exile to Siberia. The Polish 
committee, American and French, with General Lafayette at 
their head, have appropriated a great part of their funds to the 
relief of this body, and our countryman, Dr. Howe, has under- 



102 DR. HOWE'S MISSION. 



taken the dangerous and difficult task of carrying it to them. He 
left Paris for Brussels, with letters from the Polish generals, and 
advices from Lafayette to all Polish committees upon his route, 
that they should put all their funds into his hands. He is a gal- 
lant fellow, and will succeed if any one can ; but he certainly runs 
great hazard. God prosper him ! 



LETTER XIII. 

THE GAMBLING-HOUSES OF PARIS. 

I accepted, last night, from a French gentleman of high stand- 
ing, a polite offer of introduction to one of the exclusive gambling 
clubs of Paris. With the understanding, of course, that it was 
only as a spectator, my friend, whom I had met at a dinner party, 
despatched a note from the table, announcing to the temporary 
master of ceremonies his intention of presenting me. We went 
at eleven, in full dress. I was surprised at the entrance with the 
splendor of the establishment — gilt balustrades, marble staircases, 
crowds of servants in full livery, and all the formal announce- 
ment of a court. Passing through several ante-chambers, a 
heavy folding-door was thrown open, and we were recieved by 
one of the noblest-looking men I have seen in France — Count 

■ . I was put immediately at my ease by his dignified and 

kind politeness ; and after a little conversation in English, which 
he spoke fluently, the entrance of some other person left me at 
liberty to observe at my leisure. Everything about me had the 
impress of the studied taste of high life. The lavish and yet soft 
disposition of light, the harmony of color in the rich hangings 



104 CLUB GAMBLING HOUSE. 



and furniture, the quiet manners and subdued tones of conversa- 
tion, the respectful deference of the servants, and the simplicity 
of the slight entertainment, would have convinced me, without 
my Asmodcus, that I was in no every-day atmosphere. Conversa- 
tion proceeded for an hour, while the members came dropping in 
from their evening engagements, and a little after twelve a glass 
door was thrown open, and we passed from the reception-room 
to the spacious suite of apartments intended for play. One or 
two of the gentlemen entered the side rooms for billiards and 
cards, but the majority closed about the table of hazard in the 
central hall. I had never conceived so beautiful an apartment. 
It can be described in two words — columns and mirrors. There 
was nothing else between the exquisitely-painted ceiling and the 
floor. The form was circular, and the wall was laid with glass, 
interrupted only with pairs of Corinthian pillars, with their rich 
capitals reflected and re-reflected innumerably. It seemed like 
a hall of colonnades of illimitable extent — the multiplication of 
the mirrors into each other was so endless and illusive. I felt an 
unconquerable disposition to abandon myself to a waking revery 
of pleasure ; and as soon as the attention of the company was per- 
fectly engrossed by the silent occupation before them, I sank 
upon a sofa, and gave my senses up for a while to the fascination 
of the scene. My eye was intoxicated. As far as my sight could 
penetrate, stretched apparently interminable halls, carpeted with 
crimson, and studded with graceful columns and groups of courtly 
figures, forming altogether, with its extent and beauty, and in the 
subdued and skilfully-managed light, a picture that, if real, would 
be one of unsurpassable splendor. I quite forgot my curiosity to 
see the game. I had merely observed, when my companion re- 
minded me of the arrival of my own appointed hour for departure 



FRASCATPS. 105 



that, whatever was lost or won, the rustling bills were passed 
from one to the other with a quiet and imperturbable politeness, 
that betrayed no sign either of chagrin or triumph ; though, from 
the fact that the transfers were in paper only, the stakes must 
have been anything but trifling. Refusing a polite invitation to 
partake of the supper, always in waiting, we took leave about two 
hours after midnight. 

As we drove from the court, my companion suggested to me, 
that, since we were out at so late juj hour, we might as well 
look in for a moment at the more* accessible "hells," and, 
pulling the cordon, he ordered to " JFrascati's." This, you know 
of course, is the fashionable place of ruin, and here the heroes of 
all novels, and the rakes of all comedies, mar or make their for- 
tunes. An evening dress, and the look of a gentleman, are the 
only required passport. A servant in attendance took our hats 
and canes, and we walked in without ceremony. It was a dif- 
ferent scene from the former. Four large rooms, plainly but 
handsomely furnished, opened into each other, three of which 
were devoted to play, and crowded with players. ' Elegantly- 
dressed women, some of them with high pretensions to French 
beauty, sat and stood at the table, watching their own stakes in 
the rapid games with fixed attention. The majority of the 
gentlemen were English. The table was very large, marked as 
usual with the lines and figures of the game, and each person 
playing had a small rake in his hand, with which he drew toward 
him his proportion of the winnings. I was disappointed at the 
first glance in the faces : there was very little of the high-bred 
courtesy I had seen at the club-house, but there was no very 
striking exhibition of feeling, and I should think, in any but an 
extreme case, the whispering silence and general quietness o:' the 
5* 



106 FEMALE GAMBLER 



room would repress it. After watching the variations of luck 
awhile, however, I selected one or two pretty desperate losers, 
and a young Frenchman who was a large winner, and confined 
my observation to them only. Among the former was a girl of 
about eighteen, a mild, quiet-looking creature, with her hair 
curling long on her neck, and hands childishly small and white, 
who lost invariably. Two piles of five-franc pieces and a small 
heap of gold lay on the table beside her, and I watched her till 
she laid the last coin upon the losing color. She bore it very 
well. By the eagerness^fiath which, at every turn of the last 
cardj she closed her hand upon the rake which she held, it was 
evident that her hopes were high ; but when her last piece was 
drawn into the bank, she threw up her little fingers with a playful 
desperation, and commenced conversation even gayly with a 
gentleman who stood leaning over her chair. The young 
Frenchman continued almost as invariably to win. He was 
excessively handsome ; but there was a cold, profligate, unvar}'- 
ing hardness of expression in his face, that made me dislike him. 
The spectators drew gradually about his chair ; and one or two 
of the women, who seemed to know him well, selected a color for 
him occasionally, or borrowed of him and staked for themselves. 
We left him winning. The other players were mostly English, 
and very uninteresting in their exhibition of disappointment. 
My companion told me that there would be more desperate play- 
ing toward morning, but I had become disgusted with the cold 
selfish faces of the scene, and felt no interest sufficient to detain 
me. 



LETTER XIV. 

THE GARDEN" OF THE TUILERIES PRINCE MOSCOWA SONS OF 

NAPOLEON COOPER AND MORSE SIR SIDNEY SMITH FASHION- 
ABLE WOMEN CLOSE OF THE DAY THE FAMOUS EATING- 
HOUSES HOW TO DINE WELL IN PARIS, ETC. 

It is March, and the weather has all the characteristics of 
New-England May. The last two or three days have been 
deliciously spring-like, clear, sunny, and warm. The gardens of 
the Tuileries are crowded. The chairs beneath the terraces are 
filled by the old men reading the gazettes, mothers and nurses 
watching their children at play, and, at every few steps, circles 
of whole families sitting and sewing, or conversing, as uncon- 
cernedly as at home. It strikes a stranger oddly. With the 
privacy of American feelings, we cannot conceive of these out-of- 
door French habits. What would a Boston or New York mother 
think of taking chairs for her whole family, grown-up daughters 
and all, in the Mall or upon the Battery, and spending the day in 
the very midst of the gayest promenade of the city ? • People of 
all ranks do it here. You will see the powdered, elegant gentle- 
man of the ancien regime, handing his wife or daughter to a 



108 TUILERIES. 



straw-bottomed chair, with all the air of drawing-room courtesy ; 
and, begging pardon for the liberty, pull his journal from his 
pocket, and sit down to read beside her ; or a tottering old man, 
leaning upon a stout Swiss servant girl, goes bowing and 
apologizing through the crowd, in search of a pleasant neighbor, 
or some old compatriot, with whom he may sit and nod away the 
hours of sunshine. It is a beautiful custom, positively. The 
gardens are like a constant fete. It is a holiday revel, without 
design or disappointment. It is a masque, where every one 
plays his character unconsciously, and therefore naturally and 
well. We get no idea of it at home. We are too industrious a 
nation to have idlers enough. It would even pain most of the 
people of our country to see so many thousands of all ages and 
conditions of life spending day after day in such absolute 
uselessness. 

Imagine yourself here, on the fashionable terrace, the prom- 
enade, two days in the week, of all that is distinguished and gay 
in Paris. It is a short raised walk, just inside the railings, and 
the only part of all these wide and beautiful, gardens where a 
member of the beau mondt is ever to be met. The hour is four, 
the day Friday, the weather heavenly. I have just been long 
enough in Paris to be an excellent walking dictionary, and I will 
tell you who people are. In the first place, all the well-dressed 
men you see are English. You will know the French by those 
flaring coats, laid clear back on their shoulders, and their 
execrable hats and thin legs. Their heads are fresh from the 
hair-dresser ; their hats are chapeaux cle soie, or imitation beaver ; 
they are delicately rouged, and wear very white gloves ; and 
those who are with ladies, lead, as you observe, a small doo- by 
a string, or carry it in their arms. No French lady walks out 



MKN OF MARK. 109 

without ber lap-dog. These slow-paced men you see in brown 
mustaches and frogged coats are refugee Poles. The short, 

thick, agile-looking man before us is General , celebrated 

for having been the last to surrender on the last field of that 
brief contest. His handsome face is full of resolution, and unlike 
the rest of his countrymen, he looks still unsubdued and in good 
heart. He walks here every day an hour or two, swinging his 
cane round his forefinger, and thinking, apparently of anything 
but his defeat. Observe these two young men approaching us. 
The short one on the left, with the stiff hair and red mustache, 
is Prince Moscowa, the son of Marshal Ney. He is an object of 
more than usual interest just now, as the youngest of the new 
batch of peers. The expression of his countenance is more bold 
than handsome, and indeed he is anything but a carpet knight ; a 
fact of which he seems, like a man of sense, quite aware. He is 
to be seen at the parties standing with his arms folded, leaning 
silently against the wall for hours together. His companion is, 
I presume to say, quite the handsomest man you ever saw. A 
little over six feet, perfectly proportioned, dark silken-brown 
hair, slightly curling about his forehead, a soft curling mustache, 
and beard just darkening the finest cut mouth in the world, and 
an olive complexion, of the most golden richness and clearness — 

Mr. is called the handsomest man in Europe. What is 

more remarkable still, he looks like the most modest man in 
Europe, too ; though, like most modest looking men, his reputa- 
tion for constancy in the gallant world is somewhat slender. 
And here comes a fine-looking man, though of a different order 
of beauty — a natural son of Napoleon. He is about his father's 
height, and has most of his features, though his person and air 
must be quite different. You see there Napoleon's beautiful 



HO COOPER AND MORSE. 



mouth and thinly chiselled nose, but I fancy that soft eye is his 
mother's. He is said to be one of the most fascinating men in 
France. His mother was the Countess Waleski, a lady with 
whom the Emperor became acquainted in Poland. It is singular 
that Napoleon's talents and love of glory have not descended upon 
any of the eight or ten sons whose claims to his paternity are ad- 
mitted. And here come two of our countrymen, who are to be 
seen constantly together — Cooper and Morse. That is Cooper 
with the blue surtout buttoned up to his throat, and his hat over 
his eyes. What a contrast between the faces of the two men ! 
Morse with his kind, open, gentle countenance, the very picture 
of goodness and sincerity ; and Cooper, dark and corsair-looking, 
with his brows down over his eyes, and his strongly lined mouth 
fixed in an expression of moodiness and reserve. The two faces, 
however, are not equally just to their owners — Morse is all that 
he looks to be, but Cooper's features do him decided injustice. 
I take a pride in the reputation which this distinguished country- 
man of ours has for humanity and generous sympathy. The 
distress of the refugee liberals from all countries comes home 
especially to Americans, and the untiring liberality of Mr. 
Cooper particularly, is a fact of common admission and praise. 
It is pleasant to be able to say such things. Morse is taking a 
sketch of the Gallery of the Louvre, and he intends copying 
some of the best pictures also, to acccompany it as an exhibition, 
when he returns. Our artists do our country credit abroad. 
The feeling of interest in one's country artists and authors 
becomes very strong in a foreign land. Every leaf of laurel 
awarded to them seems to touch one's own forehead. And, 
talking of laurels, here comes Sir Sidney Smith — the short, fat, 
old gentleman yonder, with the large aquiline nose and keen eye. 



CONTRADICTIONS. U\ 



He is one of the few men who ever opposed Napoleon success- 
fully, and that should distinguish him, even if he had not won by 
his numerous merits and achievements the gift of almost every 
order in Europe. He is, among other things, of a very 
mechanical turn, and is quite crazy just now about a six-wheeled 
coach, which he has lately invented, and of which nobody sees 
the exact benefit but himself. An invitation to his rooms, to 
hear his description of the model, is considered the last new 
bore. 

And now for ladies. Whom do you see that looks distinguish- 
ed ? Scarce one whom you would take positively for a lady, I 
venture to presume. These two, with the velvet pelisses and 
small satin bonnets, are rather the most genteel-looking people 
in the garden. I set them down for ladies of rank, in the first 
walk I ever took here ; and two who have just passed us, with 
the curly lap-dog, I was equally sure were persons of not very 
dainty morality. It is precisely au contraire. The velvet 
pelisses are gamblers from Frascati's, and the two with the lap- 
dog are the Countess N. and her unmarried daughter — two of 
the most exclusive specimens of Parisian society. It is very odd 
— but if you see a remarkably modest-looking woman in Paris, 
you may be sure, as the periphrasis goes, that " she is no better 
than she should be." Everything gets travestied in this artificial 
society. The general ambition seems to be, to appear that which 
one is not. White-haired men cultivate their sparse mustaches, 
and dark-haired men shave. Deformed men are successful iu 
gallantry, where handsome men despair. Ugly women dress and 
dance, while beauties mope and are deserted. Modesty looks 
brazen, and vice looks timid ; and so all through the calendar. 



112 DINNER HOUR. 



Life in Paris is as pretty a series of astonishment, as an ennuye 
could desire. 

But there goes the palace-bell — five o'clock ! The sun is just 
disappearing behind the dome of the " Invalides," and the crowd 
begins to thin. Look at the atmosphere of the gardens. How 
deliciously the twilight mist softens everything. Statues, people, 
trees, and the long perspectives down the alleys, all mellowed 
into the shadowy indistinctness of fairy-land. The throng is 
pressing out at the gates, and the guard, with his bayonet 
presented, forbids all re-entrance, for the gardens are cleared at 
sundown. The carriages are driving up and dashing away, and 
if you stand a moment you will see the most vulgar-looking 
people you have met in your promenade, waited for by chasseurs, 
and departing with indications of rank in their equipages, which 
nature has very positively denied to their persons. And now all 
the world dines and dines well. The " chef 1 '' stands with his 
gold repeater in his hand, waiting for the moment to decide the 
fate of the first dish ; the gargons at the restaurants have 
donned their white aprons, and laid the silver forks upon the 
napkins ; the pretty women are seated on their thrones in the 
saloons, and the interesting hour is here. Where shall we dine ? 
We will walk toward the Palais Royal, and talk of it as we go 
along. 

That man would " deserve well of his country" who should 
write a " Paris Guide" for the palate. I would do it myself if I 
could elude the immortality it would occasion me. One is com- 
pelled to pioneer his own stomach through the endless cartes of 
some twelve eating-houses, all famous, before he half knows 
whether he is dining well or ill. I had eaten for a week at 
Very's, for instance, before I discovered that, since Pell) am 's 



HOW TO DINE WELL. 113 



day, that, gentleman's reputation has gone down. He is a subject 
for history at present. I was misled also by an elderly gentle- 
man at Havre, who advised me to eat at Grignonh, in the Pas- 
sage Vivienne. Not liking my first coquilles aux huitres, I made 
some private inquiries, and found that his chef had deserted him 
about the time of Napoleon's return from Elba. A stranger 
gets misguided in this way. And then, if by accident you hit 
upon the right house, you may be eating for a month before you 
find out the peculiar triumphs which have stamped its celebrity. 
No mortal man can excel in everything, and it is as true of 
cooking as it is of poetry. The " Rockers de Cancale," is now 
the first eating-house iu Paris, yet they only excel in fish. The 
" Trois Freres Prcvenfattx," have a high reputation, yet their 
cotelettes provencales are the only dish which you can not get 
equally well elsewhere. A good practice is to walk about in the 
Palais Royal for an hour before dinner, and select a master. 
You. will know a gourmet easily — a man slightly past the prime 
of life, with a nose just getting its incipient blush, a remarkably 
loose, voluminous white cravat, and a corpulence more of suspi- 
cion than fact. Follow him to his restaurant, and give the gar- 
fon a private order to serve you with the same dishes as the bald 
gentleman. (I have observed that dainty livers universally lose 
their hair early.) I have been in the wake of such a person now 
for a week or more, and 1 never lived, comparatively, befefre. 
Here we are, however, at the " Trois Freres," and there goes 
my unconscious model deliberately up stairs. 'We'll follow him, 
and double his orders, and if we dine not well, there is no eating 
in France. 



LETTER XV. 

HOPITAL DES INVALIDES MONUMENT OF TURENNE MARSHAL 

NEY A POLISH LADY IN UNIFORM FEMALES MASQUERADING- 

IN MEN'S CLOTHES DUEL BETWEEN THE SONS OF GEORGE IV. 

AND OF BONAPARTE GAMBLING PROPENSITIES OF THE FRENCH. 

The weather still holds warm and bright, as it has been all the 
month, and the scarcely " premature white pantaloons" ap- 
peared yesterday in the Tuileries. The ladies loosen their 
" boas ;" the silken greyhounds of Italy follow their mistresses 
without shivering ; the birds are noisy and gay in the clipped 
trees — who that had known February in New England would 
recognize him by such a description ? 

I took an indolent stroll with a friend this morning to the 
Hopital des Invalides, on the other side of the river. Here, not 
long since, were twenty-five thousand old soldiers. There are 
but five thousand now remaining, most of them having been dis- 
missed by the Bourbons. It is of course one of the most inter- 
esting spots in France ; and of a pleasant day there is no lounge 
where a traveller can find so much matter for thought, with so 
much pleasure to the eye. We crossed over by the Pons Louis 



THE EMPEROR. 115 



Quinze, and kept along the bank of the river to the esplanade in 
front of the hospital. There was never a softer sunshine, or a 
more deliciously-tempered air ; and we found the old veterans 
out of doors, sitting upon the cannon along the rampart, or halt- 
ing about, with their wooden legs, under the trees, the pictures 
of comfort and contentment. The building itself, as you know, 
is very celebrated for its grandeur. The dome of the Invalidcs 
rises upon the eye from all parts of Paris, a perfect model of 
proportion and beauty. It was this which Bonaparte ordered to 
be gilded, to divert the people from thinking too much upon his 
defeat. It is a living monument of the most touching recollec- 
tions of him now. Positively the blood mounts, and the tears 
spring to the eyes of the spectator, as he stands a moment, and 
remembers what is around him in that place. To see his maimed 
followers, creeping along the corridors, clothed and fed by the 
bounty he left, in a place devoted to his soldiers alone, their old 
comrades about them, and all glowing with one feeling of devo- 
tion to his memory, to speak to them, to hear their stories of 
— "L'Empereur" it is better than a thousand histories to make 
one feel the glory of " the great captain." The interior of 
the dome is vast, and of a splendid style of architecture, 
and out from one of its sides extends a superb chapel, hung 
all round with the tattered flags taken in his victories alone. 
Here the veterans of his army worship, beneath the banners for 
which they fought. It is hardly appropriate, I should think, to 
adorn thus the church of a " religion of peace ;" but while there, 
at least, we feel strangely certain, somehow, that it is right and 
fitting ; and when, as we stood deciphering the half-effaced in- 
signia of the different nations, the organ began to peal, there cer- 
tainly was anything but a jar between this grand music, conse- 



116 TURENNE. 



crated as it is by religious associations, and the thrilling and 
uncontrolled sense in iny bosom of Napoleon's glory. The 
anthem seemed to him, ! 

The majestic sounds were still rolling through the dome when 
we came to the monument of Turenne. Here is another com- 
ment on the character of Bonaparte's mind. There was once a 
long inscription on this monument, describing, in the fulsome 
style of an epitaph, the deeds and virtues of the distinguished 
man who is buried beneath. The emperor removed and replaced 
it by a small slab, graven with the single word Turenne. You 
acknowledge the sublimity of this as you stand before it. Every- 
thing is in keeping with its grandeur. The lofty proportions 
and magnificence of the dome, the tangible trophies of glory, 
and the maimed and venerable figures, kneeling about the altar, 
of those who helped to win them, are circumstances that make 
that eloquent word as articulate as if it were spoken in thunder. 
You feel that Napoleon's spirit might walk the place, and read 
the hearts of those who should visit it, unoifended. 

We passed on to the library. It is ornamented with the por- 
traits of all the generals of Napoleon, save one. Ncifs is not 
there. It should, and will be, at some time or other, doubtless ; 
but I wonder that, in a day when such universal justice is done to 
the memory of this brave man, so obvious and it would seem 
necessary a reparation should not be demanded. Great efforts 
have been making of late to get his sentence publicly reversed, 
but, though they deny his widow and children nothing else, this 
melancholy and unavailing satisfaction is refused them. Ney's 
memory little needs it, it is true. No visiter looks about the 
gallery at the Invalided without commenting feelingly on the 
omission of his portrait ; and probably no one of the scarred 



LADY OFFICER. 117 



veterans who sit there, reading their own deeds in history, looks 
round on the faces of the old leaders of whom it tells, without 
remembering and feeling that the brightest name upon the page 
is wanting. I would rather, if I were his son, have the regret 
than the justice. 

We left the hospital, as all must leave it, full of Napoleon. 
France is full of him. The monuments and the hearts of the 
people, all are alive with his name and glory. Disapprove and 
detract from his reputation as you will (and as powerful minds, 
with apparent justice, have done), as long as human nature is 
what it is, as long as power and loftiness of heart hold their pre- 
sent empire over the imagination, Napoleon is immortal. 



The promenading world is amused just now with the daily ap- 
pearance in the Tuileries of a Polish lady, dressed in the Polo- 
naise undress uniform, decorated with the order of distinction 
given for bravery at Warsaw. She is not very beautiful, but she 
wears the handsome military cap quite gallantly ; and her small 
feet and full chest are truly captivating in boots and a frogged 
coat. It is an exceedingly spirited, well-charactered face, with 
a complexion slightly roughened by her new habits. Her hair is 
cut short, and brushed up at the sides, and she certainly handles 
the little switch she carries with an air which entirely forbids 
insult. She is ordinarily seen lounging very idly along between 
two polytechnic boys, who seem to have a great admiration for 
her. I observe that the Polish generals touch their hats very 
respectfully as she passes, but as yet I have been unable to come 
at her precise history. 

By the by, masquerading in men's clothes is not at all unconi- 



118 GAMBLING QUARREL. 



mon in Paris. I have sometimes seen two or three women at a 
time dining at the restaurants in this way. No notice is taken of 
it, and the lady is perfectly safe from insult, though every one 
that passes may penetrate the disguise. It is common at the 
theatres, and at the public balls still more so. I have noticed 
repeatedly at the weekly soirees of a lady of high respectability, 
two sisters in boy's clothes, who play duets upon the piano for the 
dance. The lady of the house told me they preferred it, to avoid 
attention, and the awkwardness of position natural to their voca- 
tion, in society. The tailors tell me it is quite a branch of trade 
— making suits for ladies of a similar taste. There is one 
particularly, in the Rue Richelieu, who is famed for his nice fits 
to the female figure. It is remarkable, however, that instead of 
wearing their new honors meekly, there is no such impertinent 
puppy as a femme deguisee. I saw one in a cafe, not lung ago, 
rap the gargon very smartly over the fingers with a rattan, for 
overrunning her cup ; and they are sure to shoulder you off the 
sidewalk, if you are at all in tho way. I have seen several 
amusing instances of a probable quarrel in the street, ending in a 
gay bow, and a " pardon, madame /" 



There has been a great deal of excitement here for the past 
two days on the result of a gambling quarrel. An English gen- 
tleman, a fine, gay, noble-looking fellow, whom I have often met 
at parties, and admired for his strikingly winning and elegant 
manners, lost fifty thousand francs on Thursday night at cards. 
The Count St. Leon was the winner. It appears that Hesse, the 
Englishman, had drank freely before sitting down to play, and 



CURIOUS ANTAGONISTS. ng 



the next morning his friend, who had bet upon the game, per- 
suaded him that there had been some unfairness on the part of 
his opponent. He refused consequently to pay the debt, and 
charged the Frenchman, and another gentleman who backed 
him, with deception. The result was a couple of challenges, 
which were both accepted. Hesse fought the Count on Friday, 
and was dangerously wounded at the first fire. His friend 
fought on Saturday (yesterday), and is reported to be mortally 
wounded. It is a little remarkable that both the losers are shot, 
and still more remarkable, that Hesse should have been, as he 
was known to be, a natural son of G-eorge the Fourth ; and 
Count Leon, as was equally well known, a natural son of Bona- 
parte ! 

Everybody gambles in Paris. I had no idea that so desperate 
a vice could be so universal, and so little deprecated as it is. 
The gambling-houses are as open and as ordinary a resort as any 
public promenade, and one may haunt them with as little danger 
to his reputation. To dine from six to eight, gamble from eight 
to ten, go to a ball, and return to gamble till morning, is as com- 
mon a routine for married men and bachelors both, as a system 
of dress, and as little commented on. I sometimes stroll into 
the card-room at a party, but I can not get accustomed to the 
sight of ladies losing or winning money. Almost all French- 
women, who are too old to dance, play at parties ; and their 
daughters and husbands watch the game as unconcernedly as if 
they were turning over prints. I have seen English ladies play, 
but with less philosophy. They do not lose their money gayly. 
It is a great spoiler of beauty, the vexation of a loss. I think I 
never could respect a woman upon whose face I had remarked 
the shade I often see at an English card-table. It is certain that 



120 INFLUENCE OF PARIS- 



vice walks abroad in Paris, in rnaDy a shape that would seem, to 
an American eye, to show the fiend too openly. I am not over 
particular, I think, but I would as soon expose a child to the 
plague as give either son or daughter a free rein for a year in 
Paris. 



LETTER XVI. 

THE CHOLERA A MASQUE BALL THE GAY WORLD — MOBS VISIT 

TO THE HOTEL DIEU. 

You see by the papers, I presume, the official accounts of the 

cholera in Paris. It seems very terrible to you, no doubt, at 

your distance from the scene, and truly it is terrible enough, if 

one could realize it, anywhere ; but many here do not trouble 

themselves about it, and you might be in this metropolis a month, 

and if you observed the people only, and frequented only the 

places of amusement, and the public promenades, you might 

never suspect its existence. The weather is June-like, deli- 

ciously warm and bright ; the trees are just in the tender green 

of the new buds, and the public gardens are thronged all day 

with thousands of the gay and idle, sitting under the trees in 

groups, laughing and amusing themselves, as if there were no 

plague in the air, though hundreds die every day. The churches 

are all hung in black ; there is a constant succession of funerals ; 

and you cross the biers and hand-barrows of the sick, hurrying to 

the hospitals at every turn, in every quarter of the city. It is 

very hard to realize such things, and, it would seem, very hard 
6 



122 CHOLERA GAIETIES. 



even to treat them seriously. I was at a masque ball at the 
Theatre des Varietes, a night or two since, at the celebration of 
the Mi- Car erne ^ or half-Lent. There were some two thousand 
people, I should think, in fancy dresses, most of them grotesque 
and satirical, and the ball was kept up till seven in the morning, 
with all the extravagant gaiety, noise, and fun, with which the 
French people manage such matters. There was a cholera-waltz, 
and a cholera-galopade, and one man, immensely tall, dressed as 
a personification of the Cholera itself, with skeleton armor, 
bloodshot eyes, and other horrible appurtenances of a walking 
pestilence. It was the burden of all the jokes, and all the cries 
of the hawkers, and all the conversation ; and yet, probably, 
nineteen out. of twenty of those present lived in the quarters most 
ravaged by the disease, and many of them had seen it face to 
face, and knew perfectly its deadly character ! 

As yet, with few exceptions, the higher classes of society have 
escaped. It seems to depend very much on the manner in 
which people live, and the poor have been struck in every quarter, 
often at the very next door to luxury. A friend told me this 
morning, that the porter of a large and fashionable hotel, in 
which he lives, had been taken to the hospital ; and there have 
been one or two cases in the airy quarter of St. Germain, in the 
same street with Mr. Cooper, and nearly opposite. Several 
physicians and medical students have died too, but the majority 
of these live with the narrowest economy, and in the parts of the 
city the most liable to impure effluvia. The balls go on still in 
the gay world ; and I presume they would go on if there were 
only musicians enough left to make an orchestra, or fashionists 
to compose a quadrille. I was walking home very late from a 
party the night before last, with a captain in the English army. 



CHOLERA PATIENT. 123 



The gray of the morning was just stealing into the sky ; and 
after a stopping a moment in the Place Vendome, to look at the 
column, stretching up apparently unto the very stars, we bade 
good morning, and parted. He had hardly left me, he said, 
when he heard a frightful scream from one of the houses in the 
Rue St. Honore, and thinking there might be some violence 
going on, he rang at the gate and entered, mounting the first 
staircase that presented. A woman had just opened a door, and 
fallen on the broad stair at the top, and was writhing in great 
agony. The people of the house collected immediately ; but the 
moment my friend pronounced the word cholera, there was a 
general dispersion, and he was left alone with the patient. He 
took her in his arms, and carried her to a coach-stand, without 
assistance, and, driving to the Hotel Dieu, left her with the 
Sceurs de Charite. She has since died. 

As if one plague were not enough, the city is still alive in the 
distant faubourgs with revolts. Last night, the rappel was beat 
all over the town, the national guard called to arms, and marched 
to the Porte St. Denis, and the different quarters where the 
mobs were collected. 

Many suppose there is no cholera except such as is produced 
by poison ; and the Hotel Dieu, and the other hospitals, are be- 
sieged daily by the infuriated mob, who swear vengeance against 
the government for all the mortality they witness. 



I have just returned from a visit to the Hotel Dieu— the hos- 
pital for the cholera. Impelled by a powerful motive, which it is 
not now necessary to explain, I had previously made several at- 



124 MORNING IN PARIS. 



tempts to gain admission in vain ; but yesterday I fell in fortu- 
nately with an English physician, who told me I could pass with 
a doctor's diploma, which he offered to borrow for me of some 
medical friend. He called by appointment at seven this morn- 
ing, to accompany me on my visit. 

It was like one of our loveliest mornings in June — an inspirit- 
ing, sunny, balmy day, all softness and beauty — and we crossed 
the Tuileries by one of its superb avenues, and kept down the 
bank of the river to the island. With the errand on which we 
were bound in our minds, it was impossible not to be struck very 
forcibly with our own exquisite enjoyment of life. I am sure I 
never felt my veins fuller of the pleasure of health and motion ; 
and I never saw a day when everything about me seemed better 
worth living for. The splendid palace of the Louvre, with its 
long fagade of nearly half a mile, lay in the mellowest sunshine 
on our left ; the lively river, covered with boats, and spanned 
with its magnificent and crowded bridges on our right ; the view 
of the island, with its massive old structures below, and the fine 
gray towers of the church of Notre Dame rising, dark and 
gloomy, in the distance, rendered it difficult to realize anything 
but life and pleasure. That under those very towers, which 
added so much to the beauty of the scene, there lay a thousand 
and more of poor wretches dying of a plague, was a thought my 
mind would not retain a moment. 

Half an hour's walk brought us to the Place Notre Dame, on 
one side of which, next this celebrated church, stands the hos- 
pital. My friend entered, leaving me to wait till he had found 
an acquaintance of whom he could borrow a diploma. A hearse 
was standing at the door of the church, and I went in for a mo- 
ment. A few mourners, with fhe appearance of extreme poverty, 



CHOLERA HOSPITAL. 12 5 

were kneeling round a coffin at one of the side altars ; and a 
solitary priest, with an attendant boy, was mumbling the prayers 
for the dead. As I came out, another hearse drove up, with a 
rough coffin, scantily covered with a pall, and followed by one 
poor old man. They hurried in, and I strolled around the 
square. Fifteen or twenty water-carriers were filling their 
buckets at the fountain opposite, singing and laughing ; and at 
the same moment four different litters crossed toward the hos- 
pital, each with its two or three followers, women and children, 
friends or relatives of the sick, accompanying them to the door, 
where they parted from them, most probably for ever. The 
litters were set down a moment before ascending the steps ; the 
crowd pressed around and lifted the coarse curtains ; farewells 
were exchanged, and the sick alone passed in. I did not see any 
great demonstration of feeling in the particular cases that were 
before me ; but I can conceive, in the almost deadly certainty of 
this disease, that these hasty partings at the door of the hospital 
might often be scenes of unsurpassed suffering and distress. 

I waited, perhaps, ten minutes more. In the whole time that 
I had been there, twelve litters, bearing the sick, had entered the 
Hotel Dieu. As I exhibited the borrowed diploma, the thirteenth 
arrived, and with it a young man, whose violent and uncontrolled 
grief worked so far on the soldier at the door, that he allowed 
him to pass. I followed the bearers to the yard, interested ex- 
ceedingly to observe the first treatment and manner of reception. 
They wound slowly up the stone staircase to the upper story, and 
entered the female department — a long low room, containing 
nearly a hundred beds, placed in alleys scarce two feet from each 
other. Nearly all were occupied, and those which were empty 
my friend told me were vacated by deaths yesterday. They set 



126 NEW PATIENT. 



down the litter by the side of a narrow cot, with coarse but 
clean sheets, and a Saur de Charite, with a white cap, and a 
cross at her girdle, came and took off the canopy. A young wo- 
man, of apparently twenty-five, was beneath, absolutely con- 
vulsed with agony. Her eyes were started from their sockets, 
her mouth foamed, and her face was of a frightful, livid purple. 
I never saw so horrible a sight. She had been taken in perfect 
health only three hours before, but her features looked to me 
marked with a year of pain. The first attempt to lift her pro- 
duced violent vomiting, and I thought she must die instantly. 
They covered her up in bed, and leaving the man who came with 
her hanging over her with the moan of one deprived of his 
senses, they went to receive others, who were entering in the 
same manner. I inquired of my companion how soon she would 
be attended to. He said, " possibly in an hour, as the physician 
was just commencing his rounds." An hour after this I passed 
the bed of this poor woman, and she had not yet been visited. 
Her husband answered my question with a choking voice and a 
flood of tears. 

I passed down the ward, and found nineteen or twenty in the 
last agonies of death. They lay perfectly still, and seemed be- 
numbed. I felt the limbs of several, and found them quite cold. 
The stomach only had a little warmth. Now and then a half 
groan escaped those who seemed the strongest ; but with the 
exception of the universally open mouth and upturned ghastly 
eye, there were no signs of much suffering. I found two who 
must have been dead half an hour, undiscovered by the attend- 
ants. One of them was an old woman, nearly gray, with a very 
bad expression of face, who was perfectly cold — lips, limbs, body, 
and all. The other was younger, and looked as if she had died 



PHYSICIAN'S INDIFFERENCE. 127 



in pain. Her eyes appeared as if they had been forced half out 
of the sockets, and her skin was of the most livid and deathly 
purple. The woman in the next bed told me she had died since 
the Sceur de Charite had been there. It is horrible to think 
how these poor creatures may suffer in the very midst of the pro- 
visions that are made professedly for their relief. I asked why 
a simple prescription of treatment might not be drawn up the 
physicians, and administered by the numerous medical students 
who were in Paris, that as few as possible might suffer from de- 
lay. " Because," said my companion, " the chief physicians 
must do everything personally , to study the complaint." And 
so, I verily believe, more human lives are sacrificed in waiting 
for experiments, than ever will be saved by the results. My 
blood boiled from the beginning to the end of this melancholy 
visit. 

I wandered about alone among the beds till my heart was sick, 
and I could bear it no longer ; and then rejoined my friend, who 
was in the train of one of the physicians, making the rounds. 
One would think a dying person should be treated with kindness. 
I never saw a rougher or more heartless manner than that of the 

celebrated Dr. , at the bedsides of these poor creatures. A 

harsh question, a rude pulling open of the mouth, to look at the 
tongue, a sentence or two of unsuppressed comments to the stu- 
dents on the progress of the disease, and the train passed on. 
If discouragement and despair are not medicines, I should think 
the visits of such physicians were of little avail. The wretched 
sufferers turned away their heads after he had gone, in every 
instance that I saw, with an expression of visibly increased 
distress. Several of them refused to answer his questions alto- 
gether. 



128 PUNCH REMEDY. 



On reaching the bottom of the Salle St. Monique, one of the 
male wards, I heard loud voices and laughter. I had noticed 
much more groaning and complaining in passing among the men, 
and the horrible discordance struck me as something infernal. 
It proceeded from one of the sides to which the patients had 
been removed who were recovering. The most successful treat- 
ment has been found to be punch, very strong, with but little 
acid, and being permitted to drink as much as they would, they 
had become partially intoxicated. It was a fiendish sight, posi- 
tively. They were sitting up, and reaching from one bed to the 
other, and with their still pallid faces and blue lips, and the hos- 
pital dress of white, they looked like so many carousing corpses. 
I turned away from them in horror. 

I was stopped in the door-way by a litter entering with a sick 
woman. They set her down in the main passage between the 
beds, and left her a moment to find a place for her. She- 
seemed to have an interval of pain, and rose up on one hand, and 
looked about her very earnestly. I followed the direction of her 
eyes, and could easily imagine her sensations. Twenty or thirty 
death-like faces were turned toward her from the different beds, 
and the groans of the dying and the distressed came from every 
side. She was without a friend whom she knew, sick of a mortal 
disease, and abandoned to the mercy of those whose kindness is 
mercenary and habitual, and of course without sympathy or feel- 
ing. Was it not enough alone, if she had been far less ill, to im- 
bitter the very fountains of life, and kill her with mere fright and 
horror ? She sank down upon the litter again, and drew her 
shawl over her head. I had seen enough of suffering, and I left 
the place. 

On reaching the lower staircase, my friend proposed to me to 



DEAD ROOM. 129 



look into the dead-room. We descended to a large dark apart- 
ment below the street-level, lighted by a lamp fixed to the wall. 
Sixty or seventy bodies lay on the floor, some of them quite un- 
covered, and some wrapped in mats. I could not see distinctly 
enough by the dim light, to judge of their discoloration. They 
appeared mostly old and emaciated. 

I can not describe the sensation of relief with which I breathed 
the free air once more. I had no fear of the cholera, but the 
suffering and misery I had seen, oppressed and half smothered 
me. Everyone who has walked through an hospital, will remem- 
ber how natural it is to subdue the breath, and close the nostrils 
to the smells of medicine and the close air The fact, too, that 
the question of contagion is still disputed, though I fully believe 
the cholera not to be contagious, might have had some effect. 
My breast heaved, however, as if a weight had risen from my 
lungs, and I walked home, blessing God for health, with undis- 
sembled gratitude. 



P. S. — I began this account of my visit to the Hotel Dieu yes- 
terday. As I am perfectly well this morning, I think the point 
of non-contagion, in my own case at least, is clear. I breathed 
the same air with the dying and the diseased for two hours, and 
felt of nearly a hundred to be satisfied of the curious phenomena 
of the vital heat. Perhaps an experiment of this sort in a man 
not professionally a physician, may be considered rash or useless ; 
and I would not willingly be thought to have done it from any 

puerile curiosity. I have been interested in such subjects always ; 
6* 



130 NON-CONTAGION. 



and I considered the fact that the king's sons had been permitted 
to visit the hospital, a sufficient assurance that the physicians 
were seriously convinced there could be no possible danger. If I 
need an apology, it may be found in this. 



LETTER XVII. 

LEGION OF HONOR PRESENTATION TO THE KING THE THRONE 

OF FRANCE THE QUEEN AND THE PRINCESSES COUNTESS GUIC 

CIOLI THE LATE DUEL THE SEASON OF CARNIVAL ANOTHER 

FANCY BALL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC 

MASKERS STREET MASKING BALL AT THE PALACE THE YOUNG 

DUKE OF ORLEANS PRINCESS CHRISTINE LORD HARRY VANE 

HEIR OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU VILLIERS BERNARD, FABVIER, 

COUSIN, AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS THE SUPPER 

THE GLASS VERANDAH, ETC. 

As I was getting out of a fiacre, this morning on the Boulevard, 
I observed that the driver had the cross of the legion of honor, 
worn very modestly under his coat. On taking a second look at 
his face, I was struck with its soldier-like, honest expression ; 
and with the fear that I might imply a doubt by a question, I 
simply observed, that he probably received it from Napoleon. 
He drew himself up a little as he assented, and with half a smile 
pulled the coarse cape of his coat across his bosom. It was done 
evidently with a mixed feeling of pride and a dislike of ostenta- 
tion, which showed the nurture of Napoleon. It is astonishing 



132 UNEXPECTED CHALLENGE. 



how superior every being seems to have become that served 
under him. Wherever you find an old soldier of the " emperor,'* 
as they delight to call him, you find a noble, brave, unpretending 
man. On mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he informed 
me, that it was possibly a man who was well known, from rather 
a tragical circumstance. He had driven a gentleman to a party 
one night, who was dissatisfied with him, for some reason or 
other, and abused him very grossly. The cocker the next morn- 
ing sent him a challenge ; and, as the cross of honor levels all 
distinctions, he was compelled to fight him, and was shot dead at 
the first fire. 

Honors of this sort must be a very great incentive. They are 
worn very proudly in France. You see men of all classes, with 
the striped riband in their button-hole, marking them as the 
heroes of the three days of July. The Poles and the French 
and English, who fought well at Warsaw, wear also a badge ; 
and it certainly produces a feeling of respect as one passes them 
in the street. There are several very young men, lads really, 
who are wandering about Paris, with the latter distinction on 
their breasts, and every indication that it is all they have 
brought away from their unhappy country. The Poles are com- 
ing in now from every quarter. I meet occasionally in society 
the celebrated Polish countess, who lost her property and was 
compelled to flee, for her devotion to the cause. Louis Philippe 
has formed a regiment of the refugees, and sent them to Algiers. 
He allows no liberalists to remain in Paris, if he can help it. 
The Spaniards and Italians, particularly, are ordered off to 
Tours, and other provincial towns, the instant they become pen-* 
sioners upon the government. 



% 



COURT PRESENTATION. 133 

I was presented last night, with Mr. Can* and Mr. Ritchie, 
two of our countrymen, to the king. We were very naturally 
prepared for an embarrassing ceremony — an expectation which 
was not lessened, in my case, by the necessity of a laced coat, 
breeches, and sword. We drove into the court of the Tuileries, 
as the palace clock struck nine, in the costume of courtiers of 
the time of Louis the Twelfth, very anxious about the tenacity 
of our knee-buckles, and not at all satisfied as to the justice done 
to our unaccustomed proportions by the tailor. To say nothing 
of my looks, I am sure I should have felt much more like a 
gentleman in my costume bourgeois. By the time we had been 
passed through the hands of all the chamberlains, however, and 
walked through all the preparatory halls and drawing-rooms, each 
with its complement of gentlemen in waiting, dressed like our- 
selves in lace and small-clothes, I became more reconciled to 
myself, and began to feel that I might possibly have looked out 
of place in my ordinary dress. The atmosphere of a court is 
very contagious in this particular. 

After being sufficiently astonished with long rooms, frescoes, 
and guardsmen apparently seven or eight feet high, (the tallest 
men I ever saw, standing with halberds at the doors), we were 
introduced into the Salle du Trone — a large hall lined with 
crimson velvet throughout, with the throne in the centre of one 
of the sides. Some half dozen gentlemen were standing about 
the fire, conversing very familiarly, among whom was the British 
ambassador, Lord G-renville, and the Brazilian minister, both of 
whom I had met before. The king was not there. The Swe- 
dish minister, a noble-looking man, with snow-white hair, was the 
only other official person present, each of the ministers having 
come to present one or two of his countrymen. The king 



134 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 



entered in a Tew moments, in the simple uniform of the line, and 
joined the group at the fire, with the most familiar and cordial 
politeness ; each minister presenting his countrymen as occasion 
offered, certainly with far less ceremony than one sees at most 
dinner-parties in America. After talking a few minutes with 
Lord Grrenville, inquiring the progress of the cholera, he turned 
to Mr. Rives, and we were presented. We stood in a little circle 
round him, and he conversed with us about America for ten or 
fifteen minutes. He inquired from what States we came, and 
said he had been as far west as Nashville, Tennessee, and had 
often slept in the woods, quite as soundly as he ever did in more 
luxurious quarters. He begged pardon of Mr. Carr, who was 
from South Carolina, for saying that he had found the southern 
taverns not particularly good. He preferred the north. All 
this time I was looking out for some accent in the " king's 
English." He speaks the language with all the careless cor- 
rectness and fluency of a vernacular tongue. We were all 
surprised at it. It is American English, however. He has not 
a particle of the cockney drawl, half Irish and half Scotch, with 
which many Englishmen speak. He must be the most cosmo- 
polite king that ever reigned. He even said he had been at 
Tangiers, the place of Mr. Carr's consulate. After some pleasant 
compliments to our country, he passed to the Brazilian minister, 
who stood on the other side, leaving us delighted with his 
manner ; and, probably, in spite of our independence, much more 
inclined than before to look indulgently upon his politics. The 
queen had entered, meantime, with the king's sister, Lady 
Adelaide, and one or two of the ladies of honor ; and, after saying 
something courteous to all, in her own language, and assuring us 



ROYAL FAMILY AT TEA. 135 



that his majesty was very fond of America, the royal group bowed 
out, and left us once more to ourselves. 

We remained a few minutes, and I occupied myself with look- 
ing at the gold and crimson throne before me, and recalling to 
my mind the world of historical circumstances connected with it. 
You can easily imagine it all. The throne of France i?, perhaps, 
the most interesting one in the world. But, of all its associations, 
none rushed upon me so forcibly, or retained my imagination so 
long, as the accidental drama of which it was the scene during 
the three days of July. It was here that the people brought the 
polytechnic scholar, mortally wounded in the attack on the 
palace, to die. He breathed his last on the throne of France, 
surrounded with his comrades and a crowd of patriots. It is 
one of the most striking and affecting incidents, I think, in all 
history. 

As we passed out I caught a glimpse, through a side door, of 
the queen and the princesses sitting round a table covered with 
books, in a small drawing-room, while a servant, in the gaudy 
livery of the court, was just entering with tea. The careless 
attitudes of the figures, the mellow light of the shade-lamp, and 
the happy voices of children coming through the door, reminded 
me more of home than anything I have seen in France. It is 
odd, but really the most aching sense of home-sickness I have 
felt since I left America, was awakened at that moment — in the 
palace of a king, and at the sight of his queen and daughters ! 

"We stopped in the antechamber to have our names recorded 
in the visiting-book — a ceremony which insures us invitations to 
all the balls given at court during the winter. The first has 
already appeared in the shape of a printed note, in which we are 
informed by the " aide-de-camp of the king and the lady of 



136 COUNTESS GUICCIOLI. 



honor of the queen," that we are invited to a ball at the palace 
on Monday night. To my distress there is a little direction at 
the bottom, " Les hommes seront en uniformed which subjects 
those of us who are not military, once more to the awkwardness 
of this ridiculous court dress. I advise all Americans coming 
abroad to get a commission in the militia to travel with. It is 
of use in more ways than one. 



I met the Countess Guiccioli, walking yesterday in the Tuil- 
eries. She looks much younger than I anticipated, and is a 
handsome blonde, apparently about thirty. I am told by a gen- 
tleman who knows her, that she has become a great "flirt, and is 
quite spoiled by admiration. The celebrity of Lord Byron's 
attachment would, certainly, make her a very desirable acquaint- 
ance, were she much less pretty than she really is ; and I am told 
her drawing-room is thronged with lovers of all nations, contend- 
ing for a preference, which, having been once given, as it has, 
should be buried, I think, for ever. So, indeed, should have 
been the Empress Maria Louisa's, and that of the widow of 
Bishop Heber ; and yet the latter has married a Greek count, 
and the former a German baron ! 



I find I was incorrect in the statement I gave you of the duel 
between Mr. Hesse and Count Leon. The particulars have come 
out more fully, and from the curious position of the parties (Mr. 
Hesse, as I stated, being the natural son of George the Fourth, 



MARDI GRAS. 137 



and Count Leon of Napoleon) are worth recapitulating. Count 
Leon had lost several thousand francs to Mr. Hesse, which he 
refused to pay, alleging that there had been unfair dealing in the 
game. The matter was left to arbitration, and Mr. Hesse fully 
cleared of the charge. Leon still refused to pay, and for fifteen 
days practised with the pistol from morning till night. At the 
end of this time he paid the money, and challenged Hesse. The 
latter had lost the use of his right arm in the battle of Waterloo, 
(fighting of course against Count Leon's father), but accepted 
his challenge, and fired with his left hand. Hesse was shot 
through the body, and has since died, and Count Leon was not 
hurt. The affair has made a great sensation here, for Hesse had 
a young and lovely wife, only seventeen, and was unusually be- 
loved and admired ; while his opponent is a notorious gambler, 
and every way detested. People meet at the gaming-table 
here, however, as they meet in the street, without question of 
character. 



Carnival is over. Yesterday was " Mardi Gras" — the last 
day of the reign of Folly. Paris has been like a city of grown- 
up children for a week. What with masking all night, supping, 
or breakfasting, (which you please), at sunrise, and going to bed 
between morning and noon, I feel that I have done my devoir 
upon the experiment of French manners. 

It would be tedious, not to say improper, to describe all the 
absurdities I have seen and mingled in for the last fortnight ; but 
I must try to give you some idea of the meaning the French 
attach to the season of carnival, and the manner in which it is 
celebrated. 



138 BAL COSTUME. 



In society it is the time for universal gaiety and freedom. 
Parties, fancy balls, and private masques, are given, and kept up 
till morning. The etiquette is something more free, and gal- 
lantry is indulged and followed with the privileges, almost, of a 
Saturnalia. One of the gayest things I have seen was a fancy 
ball, given by a man of some fashion, in the beginning of the sea- 
son. Most of the distingues of Paris were there ; and it was, 
perhaps, as fair a specimen of the elegant gaiety of the French 
capital, as occurred during the carnival. The rooms were full 
by ten. Everybody was in costume, and the ladies in dresses of 
unusual and costly splendor. At a bal costume there are no 
masks, of course, and dancing, waltzing, and galopading followed 
each other in the ordinary succession, but with all the heightened 
effect and additional spirit of a magnificent spectacle. It was 
really beautiful. There were officers from all the English regi- 
ments, in their fine showy uniforms ; and French officers who had 
brought dresses from their far-off campaigns ; Turks, Egyptians, 
Mussulmans, and Algerine rovers — every country that had been 
touched by French soldiers, represented in its richest costume 
and by men of the finest appearance. There was a colonel of the 
English Madras cavalry, in the uniform of his corps — one mass 
of blue and silver, the most splendidly dressed man I ever saw ; 
and another Englishman, who is said to be the successor of Lord 
Byron in the graces of the gay and lovely Countess Guiccioli, 
was dressed as a Greek ; and between the exquisite taste and 
richness of his costume, and his really excessive personal beauty, 
he made no ordinary sensation. The loveliest woman there was 
a young baroness, whose dancing, figure, and face, so resembled 
a celebrated Philadelphia belle, that I was constantly expecting 
her musical French voice to break into English. She was 



PUBLIC MASKS. 139 



dressed as an eastern dancing-girl, and floated about with the 
lightness and grace of a fairy. Her motion intoxicated the eye 
completely. I have seen her since at the Tuileries, where, in a 
waltz with the handsome Duke of Orleans, she was the single 
object of admiration for the whole court. She is a small, lightly- 
framed creature, with very little feet, and a face of more bril- 
liancy than regular beauty, but all airiness and spirit. A very 
lovely, indolent-looking English girl, with large sleepy eyes, was 
dressed as a Circassian slave, with chains from her ankles to her 
waist. She was a beautiful part of the spectacle, but too passive 
to interest one. There were sylphs and nuns, broom-girls and 
Italian peasants, and a great many in rich Polonaise dresses. It 
was unlike any other fancy ball I ever saw, in the variety and 
novelty of the characters represented, and the costliness with 
which they were dressed. You can have no idea of the splendor 
of a waltz in such a glittering assemblage. It was about time for 
an early breakfast when the ball was over. 

The private masks are amusing to those who are intimate with 
the circle. A stranger, of course, is neither acquainted enough 
to amuse himself within proper limits, nor incognito enough to 
play his gallantries at hazard. I never have seen more decidedly 
triste assemblies than the balls of this kind which I have attended, 
where the uniform black masks and dominoes gave the party the 
aspect of a funeral, and the restraint made it quite as melancholy. 

The public masks are quite another affair. They are given at 
the principal theatres, and commence at midnight. The pit and 
stage are thrown into a brilliant hall, with the orchestra in the 
centre ; the music is divine, and the etiquette perfect liberty. 
There is, of course, a great deal of vulgar company, for every 
one is admitted who pays the ten francs at the door ; but all 



140 LADY CAVALIER. 



classes of people mingle in the crowd ; and if one is not amused, 
it is because he will neither listen nor talk. I think it requires 
one or two masks to get one's eye so much accustomed to the 
sight, that he is not disgusted with the exteriors of the women. 
There was something very diabolical to me at first in a dead, 
black representation of the human face, and the long black 
domino. Persuading one's self that there is beauty under such 
an outside, is like getting up a passion for a very ugly woman, 
for the sake of her mind — difficult, rather. I soon became used 
to it, however, and amused myself infinitely. One is liable to 
waste his wit, to be sure ; for in a crowd so rarely lien composee, 
as they phrase it, the undistinguishing dress gives every one the 
opportunity of bewildering you ; but the feet and manner of walk- 
ing, and the tone and mode of expression, are indices sufficiently 
certain to decide, and give interest to a pursuit ; and, with 
tolerable caution,, one is paid for his trouble, in nineteen cases 
out of twenty. 

At the public masks, the visitors are not all in domino. One 
half at least are in caricature dresses, men in petticoats, and 
women in boots and spurs. It is not always easy to detect the 
sex. An -English lady, a carnival-acquaintance of mine, made 
love successfully, with the aid of a tall figure and great spirit, to 
a number of her own sex. She wore a half uniform, and was 
certainly a very elegant fellow. France is so remarkable indeed, 
for effeminate-looking men and masculine-looking women, that 
half the population might change costume to apparent advantage. 
The French are fond of caricaturing English dandies, and they do 
it with great success. The imitation of Bond-street dialect in 
another language is highly amusing. There were two imitation 
exquisites at the u Varietes" one night, who were dressed to 



BALL AT THE PALACE. 141 



perfection, and must have studied the character thoroughly. 
The whole theatre was in a roar when they entered. Malcon- 
tents take the opportunity to show up the king and ministers, 
and these are excellent, too. One gets weary of fun. It is a 
life which becomes tedious long before carnival is over. It is a 
relief to sit down once more to books and pen. 

The three last days are devoted to street-masking. This is the 
most ridiculous of all, Paris pours out its whole population upon 
the Boulevards, and guards are stationed to keep the goers and 
comers in separate lines, and prevent all collecting of groups on 
the pave. People in the most grotesque and absurd dress pass 
on foot, and in loaded carriages, and all is nonsense and ob- 
scenity. It is difficult to conceive the motive which can induce 
grown-up people to go to the expense and trouble of such an ex- 
hibition, merely to amuse the world. A description of these 
follies would be waste of paper. 

On the last night but one of the carnival, I went to a ball at 
the palace. We presented our invitations at the door, and 
mounted through piles of soldiers of the line, crowds of servants 
in the king's livery, and groves of exotics at the broad landing 
places, to the reception room. We were ushered into the Salle 
des Marechals — a large hall, the ceiling of which rises into the 
dome of the Tuileries, ornamented with full-length portraits of 
the living marshals of France. A gallery of a light airy struc- 
ture runs round upon the capitals of the pillars, and this, when 
we entered, and at all the after hours of the ball, was crowded 
with loungers from the assembly beneath — producing a splendid 
effect, as their glittering uniforms passed and repassed under the 
flags and armor with which the ceilings were thickly hung. The 
royal train entered presently, and the band struck up a superb 



142 DUKE OF ORLEANS- 



march. Three rows of velvet-covered seats, one above another, 
went round the hall, leaving a passage behind, and, in front of 
these, the queen and her family made a circuit of courtesy, fol- 
lowed by the wives of the ambassadors, among whom was our 
countrywoman, Mrs. Rives. Her majesty went smiling past, 
stopping here and there to speak to a lady whom she recognized, 
and the king followed her with his eternal and painfully forced 
smile, saying something to every second person he encountered. 
The princesses have good faces, and the second one has an ex- 
pression of great delicacy and tenderness, but no beauty. As 
soon as the queen was seated, the band played a quadrille, and 
the crowd cleared away from the centre for the dance. The 
Duke of Orleans selected his partner, a pretty girl, who, I be- 
lieve was English, and forward went the head couples to the ex- 
quisite music of the new opera — Robert le Diable. 

I fell into the little cortege standing about the queen, and 
watched the interesting party dancing the head quadrille for an 
hour. The Duke of Orleans, who is nearly twenty, and seems a 
thoughtless, good-natured, immature young man, moved about 
very gracefully with his handsome figure, and seemed amused, 
and quite unconscious of the attention he drew. The princesses 
were vis-a-vis, and the second one, a dark-haired, slender, inter- 
esting girl of nineteen, had a polytechnic scholar for her partner. 
He was a handsome, gallant-looking fellow, who must have dis- 
tinguished himself to have been invited to court, and I could not 
but admire the beautiful mixture of respect and self-confidence 
with which he demanded the hand of the princess from the lady 
of honor, and conversed with her during the dance. If royalty 
does not seal up the affections, I could scarce conceive how a 
being so decidedly of nature's best nobility, handsome, graceful, 



DR. BOWRING. 143 



and confident, could come within the sphere of a sensitive-look- 
ing girl, like the princess Christine, and not leave more than a 
transient recollection upon her fancy. The music stopped, and I 
had been so occupied with my speculations upon the polytechnic 
boy, that I had scarcely noticed any other person in the dance. 
He led the princess back to her seat by the dame cfhonneur, 
bowing low, colored a little, and mingled with the crowd. A 
few minutes after, I saw him in the gallery, quite alone, leaning 
over the railing, and looking down upon the scene below, having 
apparently abandoned the dance for the evening. From some- 
thing in his face, and in the manner of resuming his sword, I was 
certain he had come to the palace with that single object, and 
would dance no more. I kept him in my eye most of the night, 
and am very sure he did not. If the little romance I wove out 
of it was not a true one, it was not because the material was im- 
probable. 

As I was looking still at the quadrille dancing before the 
queen, Dr. Bowring took my arm and proposed a stroll through 
the other apartments. I found that the immense crowd in the 
Salle des Marechals was but about one fifth of the assembly. 
We passed through hall after hall, with music and dancing in 
each, all crowded and gay alike, till we came at last to the Salle 
du Trone where the old men were collected at card-tables and in 
groups for conversation. My distinguished companion was of 
the greatest use to me here, for he knew everybody, and there 
was scarce a person in the room who did not strongly excite my 
curiosity. One half of them at least were maimed ; some with- 
out arms, and some with wooden legs, and faces scarred and 
weather-burnt, but all in full uniform, and nearly all with three 
or four orders of honor on the breast. You would have held 



144 CELEBRATED MEN. 



your breath to have heard the recapitulation of their names. At 
one table sat Marshal Grouchy and General Excebnans ; in a 
corner stood Marshal Soult, conversing with a knot of peers of 
France ; and in the window nearest the door. General Bernard, 
our country's friend and citizen, was earnestly engaged in talking 
to a group of distinguished-looking men, two of whom, my com- 
panion said, were members of the chamber of deputies. We 
stood a moment, and a circle was immediately formed around Dr. 
Bowring, who is a great favorite among the literary and liberal 
people of France. The celebrated General Fabvier came up 
among others, and Cousin the poet. Fabvier, as you know, 
held a chief command in Greece, and was elected governor of 
Paris pro tern, after the " three days." He is a very remarkable- 
looking man, with a head almost exactly resembling that of the 
bust of Socrates. The engravings give him a more animated 
and warlike expression than he wears in private. Cousin is a 
mild, retired-looking man, and was one of the very few persons 
present not in the court uniform. Among so many hundred 
coats embroidered with gold, his plain black dress looked singu- 
larly simple and poet-like. 

I left the diplomatist-poet conversing with his friends, and 
went back to the dancing rooms. Music and female beauty are 
more attractive metal than disabled generals playing at cards ; 
and encountering in my way an attache to the American legation, 
I inquired about one or two faces that interested me, and col- 
lecting information enough to pass through the courtesies of a 
dance, I found a partner and gave myself up, like the rest, to 
amusement. 

Supper was served at two, and a more splendid affair could not 
be conceived. A long and magnificent hall on the other side of 



GLASS VERANDAH. 145 



the Salle du Trone was set with tables, covered with everything 
that France could afford, in the royal services of gold and silver, 
and in the greatest profusion. There was room enough for all 
the immense assemblage, and when the queen was' seated with 
her daughters and ladies of honor, the company sat down and all 
was as quiet and well regulated as a dinner party of four. 

After supper the dancing was resumed, and the queen remained 
till three o'clock. At her departure the band played cotillons or 
waltzes with figures, in which the Duke of Orleans displayed the 
grace for which he is celebrated, and at four, quite exhausted 
with fatigue and heat, I went with a friend or two into the long 
glass verandah, built by Napoleon as a promenade for the Em- 
peress Maria Louisa during her illness, where tea, coffee, and 
ices were served t6 those who wished them after supper. It was 
an interesting place enough, and had my eyes and limbs ached 
less, I should have liked to walk up and down, and muse a little 
upon its recollections, but swallowing my tea as hastily as possible, 
I was but too happy to make my escape and get home to bed. 
7 



LETTER XVIII. 

CHOLERA UNIVERSAL TERROR FLIGHT OF THE INHABITANTS 

CASES WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE PALACE DIFFICULTY OF 

ESCAPE DESERTED STREETS CASES NOT REPORTED DRYNESS 

OF THE ATMOSPHERE PREVENTIVES RECOMMENDED PUBLIC 

BATHS, ETC 

Cholera ! Cholera ! It is now the only topic. There is no 
other interest — no other dread — no other occupation, for Paris. 
The invitations for parties are at last recalled — the theatres are 
at last shut or languishing — the fearless are beginning to be 
afraid — people walk the streets with camphor bags and vinia- 
grettes at their nostrils — there is a universal terror in all classes, 
and a general flight of all who can afford to get away. I never 
saw a people so engrossed with one single and constant thought. 
The waiter brought my breakfast this morning with a pale face, 
and an apprehensive question, whether I was quite well. I sent 
to my boot-maker yesterday, and he was dead. I called on a 
friend, a Hanoverian, one of those broad-chested, florid, immortal- 



CHOLERA. 147 



looking men, of whose health for fifty years, violence apart, one 
is absolutely certain, and he was at death's door with the cholera. 
Poor fellow ! He had fought all through the revolution in 
Greece ; he had slept in rain and cold, under the open sky, 
many a night, through a ten years' pursuit of the profession of 
a soldier of fortune, living one of the most remarkable lives, 
hitherto, of which I ever heard, and to be taken down here in 
the midst of ease and pleasure, reduced to a shadow with so 
vulgar and unwarlike a disease as this, was quite too much for 
his philosophy. He had been ill three days when I found him. 
He was emaciated to a skeleton in that short time, weak and 
helpless, and, though he is not a man to exaggerate suffering, he 
said he never had conceived such intense agony as he had en- 
dured. He assured me, that if he recovered, and should ever be 
attacked with it again, he would blow out his brains at the first 
symptom. Nothing but his iron constitution protracted the dis- 
order. Most people who are attacked die in from three to 
tvrenty-four hours. 

For myself, I have felt and still feel quite safe. My rooms 
are in the airiest quarter of Paris, facing the gardens of the 
Tuileries, with windows overlooking the king's ; and, as far as 
air is concerned, if his majesty considers himself well situated, it 
would be quite ridiculous in so insignificant a person as myself to 
be alarmed. With absolute health, confident spirits, and tolera- 
bly regular habits, I have usually thought one may defy almost 
anything but love or a bullet. To-day, however, there have been, 
they say, two cases within the palace-walls, members of the royal 
household, and Casimir Perier, who probably lives well and has 
enough to occupy his mind, is very low with it, and one cannot 
help feeling that he has no certain exemption, when a disease has 



148 SOCIAL TEA PARTY. 



touched both above and below him. I went to-day to the Mes- 
sagerie to engage my place for Marseilles, on the way to Italy, 
but the seats are all taken, in both mail-post and diligence, for a 
fortnight to come, and, as there are no extras in France, one 
must wait his turn. Having done my duty to myself by the in- 
quiry, I shall be content to remain quiet. 



I have just returned from a social tea-party at a house of one 
of the few English families left in Paris. It is but a little after 
ten, and the streets, as I came along, were as deserted and still 
as if it were a city of the dead. Usually, until four or five in 
the morning, the same streets are thronged with carriages hurry- 
ing to and fro, and always till midnight the trottoirs are crowded 
with promenaders. To-night I scarce met a foot-passenger, and 
but one solitary cabriolet in a walk of a mile. The contrast was 
really impressive. The moon was nearly full, and high in the 
heavens, and the sky absolutely without a trace of a cloud ; no- 
thing interrupted the full broad light of the moon, and the 
empty streets were almost as bright as at noon-day ; and, as I 
crossed the Place Vendome, I could hear, for the first time since 
I have been in Paris, though I have passed it at every hour of 
the night, the echo of my footsteps reverberated from the walls 
around. You should have been in these crowded cities of 
Europe to realize the impressive solemnity of such solitude. 

It is said that fifty thousand people have left Paris within the 
past week. Adding this to the thousand a day who are struck 
with the cholera, and the attendance necessary to the sick, and a 
thinned population is sufficiently accounted for. There are, 



RECIPE FOR CAUTION. 149 



however, hundreds ill of this frightful disease, whose cases are 
not reported. It is only those who are taken to the hospitals, 
the poor and destitute, who are numbered in the official state- 
ments. The physicians are wearied out with their private practice. 
The medical lectures are suspended, and a regular physician is 
hardly to be had at all. There is scarce a house in which some 
one has not been taken. You see biers and litters issuing from 
almost every gate, and the better ranks are no longer spared. A 
sister of the premier, M. Perier, died yesterday ; and it was 
reported at the Bourse, that several distinguished persons, who 
have been ill of it, are also dead. No one feels safe ; and the 
consternation and dread on every countenance you meet, is 
enough to chill one's very blood. I went out to-day for a little 
exercise, not feeling very well, and I was glad to get home again 
Every creature looks stricken with a mortal fear. And this 
among a French population, the gayest and merriest of people 
under all depressions ordinarily, is too strong a contrast not to 
be felt painfully. There is something singular in the air, too ; 
a disagreeable, depressing dryness, which the physicians say 
must change, or all Paris will be struck with the plague. It is 
clear and cold, but almost suffocating with dryness. 

It is very consoling in the midst of so much that is depressing, 
that the preventives recommended against the cholera are so 
agreeable. " Live well," say the doctors, " and bathe often. 
Abstain from excesses, keep a clear head and good spirits, and 
amuse yourself as much and as rationally as possible." It is a 
very excellent recipe for happiness, let alone the cholera. There 
is great room for a nice observance of this system in Paris, par- 
ticularly the eating and bathing. The baths are delightful.* 
You are received in handsome saloons, opening upon a garden in 



150 BATHS AND HAPPINESS- 



the centre of the building, ornamented with statues and fountains, 
the journals lying upon the sofas, and everything arranged with 
quite the luxury of a palace. The bathing-rooms are furnished 
with taste ; the baths are of marble, and covered inside with spot- 
lessly white linen cloths ; the water is perfumed, and you may 
lie and take your coffee, or have your breakfast served upon the 
mahogany cover which shuts you in — a union of luxuries which 
is enough to enervate a cynic. When you are ready to come out, 
a pull of the bell brings a servant, who gives you a peignoir — a 
long linen wrapper, heated in an oven, in the warm folds of 
which you are enveloped, and in three minutes are quite dry. In 
this you may sit, at your ease, reading, or musing, or lie upon 
the sofa without the restraint of a tight dress, till you are ready 
to depart ; and then four or five francs, something less than a 
dollar, pays for all. 



LETTER XIX. 

MORNING VIEW FROM THE RUE RIVOLI THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 

GUICCIOLI SISMONDI THE HISTORIAN, ETC. 

It is now the middle of April, and, sitting at my window on 
the Rue, Rivoli, I look through one of the long, clipped avenues 
of the Tuileries, and see an arch of green leaves, the sun of eight 
o'clock in the morning just breaking through the thin foliage and 
dappling the straight, even gravel-walk below, with a look of 
summer that makes my heart leap. The cholera has put an end 
to dissipation, and one gets up early, from necessity. It is 
delicious to step out before breakfast, and cross the street into 
those lovely gardens, for an hour or two of fresh air and reflec- 
tion. It is warm enough now to sit on the stone benches about 
the fountains, by the time the dew is dry ; and I know nothing so 
contemplative as the occupation of watching these royal swans, in 
the dreamy, almost imperceptible motion with which they glide 
around the edges of the basins. The gold fish swim up and 
circle about the breast of the imperial birds with a motion almost 



152 



BOIS DE BOULOGNE. 



as idle ; and the old wooden-legged soldier, who has been made 
warden of the gardens for his service, sits nodding on one of the 
chairs, or drawing fortifications with his stick in the gravel ; and 
so it happens, that, in the midst of a gay and busy city one may 
feel always a luxurious solitude ; and, be he ever so poor, loiter 
all day if he will, among scenes which only regal munificence could 
provide for him. With the Seine bounding them on one side, the 
splendid uniform fagade of the Rue Rivoli on the other, the 
palace stretching across the southern terrace, and the thick woods 
of the Champs Ely sees at the opposite gate, where could one go 
in the world to give his taste or his eye a more costly or delight- 
ful satisfaction ? 

The Bois de Boulogne, about which the Parisians talk so much, 
is less to my taste. It is a level wood of small trees, covering a 
mile or two square, and cut from corner to corner with straight 
roads for driving. The soil is sandy, and the grass grows only in 
tufts, the walks are rough, and either muddy or dusty always ; 
and, barring the equipages and the pleasure of a word in passing 
an acquaintance, I find a drive to this famous wood rather a dull 
business. I want either one thing or the other — cultivated 
grounds like the Tuileries, or the wild wood. 



I have just left the Countess Guiccioli, with whom I have been 
acquainted for some two or three weeks. She is very much 
frightened at the cholera, and thinks of going to America. The 
conversation turned principally upon Shelley, whom of course she 
knew intimately ; and she gave me one of his letters to herself as 
an autograph. She says at times he was a little crazy — " fou." 



GUICCIOLI. 153 



as she expressed it — but that there never was a nobler or a better 
man. Lord Byron, she says, loved him like a brother. She is 
still in correspondence with Shelley's wife, of whom also she 
speaks with the greatest affection. There were several miniatures 
of Byron hanging up in the room, and I asked her if any of them 
were perfect in the resemblance. "No," she said, " this was the 
most like him," taking down an exquisitely-finished miniature by 
an Italian artist, mais el etait beaucoup plus beau — beaucoup ! 
heaucoup /" She reiterated the word with a very touching 
tenderness, and continued to look at the picture for some time, 
either forgetting our presence, or affecting it. She speaks Eng- 
lish sweetly, with a soft, slow, honeyed accent, breaking into 
French when ever she gets too much interested to choose her 
words. She went on talking in French of the painters who had 
drawn Byron, and said the American, West's was the best 
likeness. I did not like to tell her that West's picture of herself 
was excessively flattered. I am sure no one would know her 
from the engraving of it, at least. Her cheek bones are high, 
her forehead is badly shaped, and, altogether, the frame of her 
features is decidedly ugly. She dresses in the worst taste, too, 
and yet, with all this, and poetry and celebrity aside, the 
Countess Guiccioli is both a lovely and a fascinating woman, 
and one whom a man of sentiment would admire, even at this 
age, very sincerely, but not for beauty. She has white and 
regular teeth, however, and her hair is incomparably the most 
beautiful I ever saw. It is of the richest and glossiest gold, 
silken and luxuriant, and changes, as the light falls upon it, with 
a mellow softness, than which nothing could be lovelier. It is 
this and her indiscribably winning manner which are lost in a 
picture, and therefore, it is perhaps fair that she should be 



154 SISMONDI. 



otherwise flattered. Her drawing-room is one of the most 
agreeable in Paris at present, and is one of the chief agremens 
which console me for a detention in an atmosphere so triste as well 
as dangerous. 



My bed-room window opens upon the court in the interior of 
the hotel Rivoli, in which I lodge. In looking out occasionally 
upon my very near neighbors opposite, I hare frequently 
oberved a gray-headed, scholar-like, fine-looking old man, writing 
at a window in the story below. One does not trouble himself 
much about his fellow-lodgers, and I had seen this gentleman at 
his work at all hours, for a month or more, without curiosity 
enough to inquire even his name. This morning the servant 
came in, with a Won Dieu ! and said M. Sismondi was frightened 
by the cholera, and was leaving his lodgings at that moment. 
The name startled me, and making some inquiries, I found that 
my gray-headed neighbor was no other than the celebrated 
historian of Italian literature, and that I had been living under 
the same roof with him for weeks, and watching him at his 
classical labors, without being at all aware of the honor of his 
neighborhood. He is a kind, benevolent-looking man, of about 
sixty, I should think ; and always had a peculiarly affectionate 
manner to his wife, who, I am told by the valet, is an English- 
woman. I regretted exceedingly the opportunity I had lost of 
knowing him, for there are few writers of whom one retains a 
more friendly and agreeable remembrance. 

In a conversation with Mr. Cooper, the other day he was re- 
marking of how little consequence any one individual found him- 



COOPER. 155 



self in Paris, even the most distinguished. We were walking in 
the Tuileries, and the remark was elicited by my pointing out to 
him one or two celebrated persons, whose names are sufficiently 
known, but who walk the public promenades, quite unnoticed and 
uurecognised. He said he did not think there were five people in 
Paris who knew him at sight, though his works were advertised 
in all the bookstores, and he had lived in Paris one or two years, 
and walked there constantly. This was putting a strong case, for 
the French idolize Cooper ; and the peculiarly translateable 
character of his works makes them read even better in a good 
translation than in the original. It is so all over the continent, I 
am told. The G-ermans, Italians, and Spaniards, prefer Cooper 
to Scott ; and it is easily accounted for when one remembers how 
much of the beauty of the Waverly novels depends on their ex- 
quisite style, and how peculiarly Cooper's excellence lies in his 
accurate, definite, tangible descriptions. There is not a more ad- 
mired author in Europe than Cooper, it is very certain ; and I 
am daily asked whether he is in America at present — so little 
do the people of these crowded cities interest themselves about 
that which is immediately at their elbows. 



LETTER XX. 

GENERAL BERTRAND FRIEND OF LADY MORGAN PHRENOLOGY 

DR. SPURZHEIM HIS LODGINGS PROCESS OF TAKING A CAST OF 

THE HEAD INCARCERATION OF DR. BOWRING AND DE POTTER 

DAVID THE SCULPTOR VISIT OF DR. SPURZHEIM TO THE UNITED 

STATES. 

My room-mate called a day or two since on General Bertrand, 
and yesterday he returned the visit, and spent an hour at our 
lodgings. He talked of Napoleon with difficulty, and became 
very much affected when my friend made some inquiries about 
the safety of the body at St. Helena. The inquiry was suggested 
by some notice we had seen in the papers of an attempt to rob 
the tomb of Washington. The General said that the vault was 
fifteen feet deep, and covered by a slab that could not be moved 
without machinery. He told us that Madame Bertrand had 
many mementoes of the Emperor, which she would be happy to 
show us, and we promised to visit him. 

At a party, a night or two since, I fell into conversation with 
an English lady, who had lived several years in Dublin, and was 



FRIEND OF LADY MORGAN. 157 



an intimate friend of Lady Morgan. She was an uncommonly 
fine woman, both in appearance and conversational powers, and 
told me many anecdotes of the authoress, defending her from all 
the charges usually made against her, except that of vanity, which 
she allowed. I received, on the whole, the impression that Lady 
Morgan's goodness of heart was more than an offset to her cer- 
tainly very innocent weaknesses. My companion was much 
amused at an American's asking after the " fender in Kildare 
street ;" though she half withdrew her cordiality when I told her 
I knew the countryman of mine who wrote the account of Lady 
Morgan, of which she complains so bitterly in the " Book of the 
Boudoir." It was this lady with whom the fair authoress " dined 
in the Chaussee 3? Anting so much to her satisfaction. 

While we were conversing, the lady's husband came up, and 
finding that I was an American, made some inquiries about the 
progress of phrenology on the other side of the water. Like most 
enthusiasts in the science, his own head was a remarkably beauti- 
ful one ; and I soon found that he was the bosom friend of Dr. 
Spurzheim, to whom he offered to introduce me. We made an 
engagement for the next day, and the party separated. 

My new acquaintance called on me the next morning, accord- 
ing to appointment, and we went together to Dr. Spurzheim's 
residence. The passage at the entrance was lined with cases, in 
which stood plaster casts of the heads of distinguished men, 
orators, poets, musicians — each class on its particular shelf — 
making altogether a most ghastly company. The doctor received 
my companion with great cordiality, addressing him in French, 
and changing to very good German-English when he made any 
observation to me. He is a tall, large-boned man, and resembles 
Harding, the American artist, very strikingly. His head is 



15S DR. SPURZHEIM. 



finely marked ; his features are bold, with rather a G-erman 
look ; and his voice is particularly winning, and changes its 
modulations, in argument, from the deep, earnest tone of a man, 
to an almost child-like softness. The conversation soon turned 
upon America, and the doctor expressed, in ardent terms, his 
desire to visit the United States, and said he had thought of 
accomplishing it the coming summer. He spoke of Dr. Chan- 
ning — said he had read all his works with avidity and delight, 
and considered him one of the clearest and most expansive 
minds of the age. If Dr. Channing had not strong developments 
of the organs of ideality and benevolence, he said, he should doubt 
his theory more than he had ever found reason to. He knew 
Webster and Professor Silliman by reputation, and seemed to be 
familiar with our country, as few men in Europe are. One 
naturally, on meeting a distinguished phrenologist, wishes to have 
his own developments pronounced upon ; but I had been warned 
by my friend that Dr. Spurzheim refused such examinations as a 
general principle, not wishing to deceive people, and unwilling to 
run the risk of offending them. After a half hour's conversation, 
however, he came across the room, and putting his hands under 
my thick masses of hair, felt my head closely all over, and men- 
tioned at once a quality, which, right or wrong, has given a ten- 
dency to all my pursuits in life. As he knew absolutely nothing 
of me, and the gentleman who introduced me knew no more, I 
was a little startled. The doctor then requested me to submit to 
the operation of having a cast taken of my head, an offer which 
was too kind and particular to be declined ; and, appointing an 
hour to be at his rooms the following day, we left him. 

I was there again at twelve, the morning after, and found 
De Potter (the Belgian patriot) and Dr. Bowring, with the 



CAST-TAKING. 159 



phrenologist, waiting to undergo the same operation. The 
preparations looked very formidable. A frame, of the length 
of the human body, lay in the middle of the room, with a 
wooden bowl to receive the head, a mattress, and a long white 
dress to prevent stain to the clothes. Ah I was the youngest, I 
took my turn first. It was very like a preparation for being 
beheaded. My neck was bared, my hair cut, and the long white 
dress put on. The back of the head is taken first ; and, as I was 
only immersed up to the ears in the liquid plaster, this was not 
very alarming. The second part, however, demanded more 
patience. My head was put once more into the stiffened mould 
of the first half, and as soon as I could get my features composed 
I was ordered to shut my eyes ; my hair was oiled and laid smooth, 
and the liquid plaster poured slowly over my mouth, eyes, and 
forehead, till I was cased completely in a stiffening mask. The 
material was then poured on thickly, till the mask was two or 
three inches thick, and the voices of those standing over me were 
scarcely audible. I breathed pretty freely through the orifices at 
my nose ; but the dangerous experiment of Madamoiselle Sontag, 
who was nearly smothered in the same operation, came across my 
mind rather vividly ; and it seemed to me that the doctor handled 
the plaster quite too ungingerly, when he came to mould about 
my nostrils. After a half hour's imprisonment, the plaster 
became sufficiently hardened, and the thread which was laid upon 
my face was drawn through, dividing the mask into two parts. 
It was then gradually removed, pulling very tenaciously upon my 
eyelashes and eyebrows, and leaving all the cavities of my face 
filled with particles of lime. The process is a tribute to vanity, 
which one would not be willing to pay very often. 

I looked on at Dr. Bowring's incarceration with no great feel- 



160 DE POTTER. 



ing of relief. It is rather worse to see than to experience, I 
think. The poet is a nervous man ; and as long as the muscles 
of his face were visible, his lips, eyelids, and mouth, were quiver- 
ing so violently that I scarcely believed it would be possible to 
get an impression of them. He has a beautiful face for a scholar 
— clear, well-cut, finished features, expressive of great purity of 
thought ; and a forehead of noble amplitude, white and polished 
as marble. His hair is black and curling (indicating in most 
cases, as Dr. Spurzheim remarked, activity of mind), and forms a 
classical relief to his handsome temples. Altogether, his head 
would look well in a picture, though his ordinary and ungraceful 
dress, and quick, bustling manner, rather destroy the effect of it 
in society. 

De Potter is one of the noblest-looking men I ever saw. He 
is quite bald, with a broad, ample, majestic head, the very model 
of dignity and intellect. Dr. Spurzheim considers his head one 
of the most extraordinary he has met. Firmness is the great de- 
velopment of its organs. His tone and manner are calm and 
very impressive, and he looks made for great occasions — a man 
stamped with the superiority which others acknowledge when cir- 
cumstances demand it. He employs himself in literary pursuits 
at Paris, and has just published a pamphlet on " the manner of 
conducting a revolution, so that no after-revolution shall be 
necessary." I have translated the title awkwardly, but that is 
the subject. 

I have since heard Dr. Spurzheim lecture twice, and have been 
with him to a meeting of the " Anthropological Society" (of 
which he is the president and De Potter the secretary), where I 
witnessed the dissection of the human brain. It was a most 
interesting and satisfactory experiment, a3 an illustration of phre- 



DAVID THE SCULPTOR. 161 



nology. David the sculptor is a member of the society, and was 
present. He looks more like a soldier than an artist, however — 
wearing the cross of the Legion of Honor, with a military frock 
coat, and an erect, stern, military carriage. Spurzheim lectures 
in a free, easy, unconstrained style, with occasionally a l'ttle 
humor, and draws his arguments from admitted facts only. 
Nothing could be more reasonable than his premises, and nothing 
more like an axiom than the results, as far as I have heard him. 
At any rate, true or false, his theory is one of extreme interest, 
and no time can be wasted in examining it ; for it is the study of 
man, and therefore the most important of studies. 

I have had several long conversations with Dr. Spurzheim 
about America, and have at last obtained his positive assurance 
that he would visit it. He gave me permission this morning to 
say (what I am sure all lovers of knowledge will be pleased to 
hear) that he should sail for New York in the course of the 
ensuing summer, and pass a year or more in lecturing and travel- 
ling in the United States. He is a man to obtain the immediate 
confidence and respect of a people like ours, of the highest moral 
worth, and the most candid and open mind. 



LETTER XXI. 

DEPARTURE FROM PARIS DESULTORY REMARKS. 

I take my departure from Paris to-morrow. I have just been 
making preparations to pack, and it has given me a fit of bad 
spirits. I have been in France only a few months, but if I had 
lived my life here, I could not be more at home. In my almost 
universal acquaintance, I have of course made pleasant friends, 
and, however time and travel should make us indifferent to such 
volant attachments, I can not now cast off these threads of inti- 
macy, without pulling a little upon very sincere feelings. I have 
been burning the mass of papers and cards that have accumulated 
in my drawers ; and the sight of these French invitations, memen- 
toes, as they are, of delightful and fascinating hours, almost 
staggers my resolution of departure. It has been an intoxicating 
time to me. Aside from lighter attractions, this metropolis 
collects within itself so much of the distinction and genius of the 
world ; and gifted men in Paris, coming here merely for pleasure, 
are so peculiarly accessible, that one looks upon them as friends 
to whom he has become attached and accustomed, and leaves the 



ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS. 163 



sphere in which he has met them, as if he had been a part of it, 
and had a right to be regretted. I do not think I shall ever 
spend so pleasant a winter again. And then my local interest is 
not a light one. I am a great lover of out-of-doors, and I have 
ransacked Paris thoroughly. I know it all from its broad fau- 
bourgs to its obscurest cut de sac. I have hunted with antiqua- 
ries for coins and old armor ; with lovers of adventure for the 
amusing and odd ; with the curious for traces of history ; with the 
romantic for the picturesque, Paris is a world for research. It 
contains more odd places, I believe, more odd people, and every 
way more material for uncommon amusement, than any other city 
in the universe. One might live a life of novelty without 
crossing the barrier. All this insensibly attaches one. My eye 
wanders at this moment from my paper to these lovely gardens 
lying beneath my window, and I could not feel more regret if 
they were mine. Just over the long line of low clipped trees, 
edging the fashionable terrace, I see the windows of the king 
within half a stone's throw — the windows at which Napoleon has 
stood, and the long line of the monarchs of France, and it has 
become to me so much a habit of thought, sitting here in the 
twilight and musing on the thousand, thousand things linked with 
the spot my eye embraces, that I feel as if I had grown to it — 
as if Paris had become to me, what it is proverbially and natu- 
rally enough to a Frenchman — " the world." 

I have other associations which I part from less painfully, 
because I hope at some future time to renew them — those with 
my own countrymen. There are few pleasanter circles than that 
of the Americans in Paris. Lafayette and his numerous family 
make a part of them. I could not learn to love this good man 
more, but seeing him often brings one's reverence more within 



164 * MR. COOPER. 



the limits of the affections; and I consider the little of his 
attention that has fallen to my share the honored part of my life, 
and the part best worth recording and remembering. He called 
upon me a day or two ago, to leave with me some copies of a 
translation of Mr. Cooper's letter on the finances of our govern- 
ment, to be sent to my friend Dr. Howe ; but, to my regret, I 
did not see him. He neglects no American, and is ever busied 
about some project connected with their welfare. May God 
continue to bless him ! 

And speaking of Mr. Cooper, no one who loves or owns a pride 
in his native land, can live abroad without feeling every day what 
we owe to the patriotism as well as the genius of this gifted man. 
If there is an individual who loves the soil that gave him birth, 
and so shows it that we are more respected for it, it is he. Mr. 
Cooper's position is a high one ; he has great advantages, and he 
improves them to the uttermost. His benevolence and activity 
in all enterprises for the relief of suffering, give him influence, 
and he employs it like a true philanthrophist and a real lover of 
his country. I say this particularly, though it may look like 
like too personal a remark, because Americans abroad are not 
always national. I am often mortified by reproaches from 
foreigners, quoting admissions made by my countrymen, which 
should be the last on their lips. A very distinguished person 
told me a day or two since, that " the Americans abroad were 
the worst enemies we had in Europe." It is difficult to 
conceive at home how 4 such a remark stings. Proportionately, 
one takes a true patriot to his heart and I feel it right to say 
here, that the love of country and active benevolence of Mr. 
Cooper distinguish him abroad, even more than his genius. His 
house is one of the most hospitable and agreeable in Paris ; and 



MR. RIVES. ^ 165 



with Morse and the circle of artists and men of distinction and 
worth about him, he is an acquaintance sincerely to regret 
leaving. 

From Mr. Hives, our Minister, I have received every possible 
kindness. He has attached me to his legation, to facilitate my 
access to other courts and the society of other cities, and to free 
me from all delays and annoyances at frontiers and custom-houses. 
It is a particular and valuable kindness, and I feel a pleasure in 
acknowledging it. Then there is Dr. Bowring, the lover and 
defender of the United States, who, as the editor of the West- 
minster Review, should be well remembered in America, and of 
him I have seen much, and from him I have received great kind- 
ness Altogether, as I said before, Paris is a home to me, and 
I leave it with a heavy heart. 

I have taken a place on the top of the diligence for a week. 
It is a long while to occupy one seat, but the weather and the 
season are delicious ; and in the covered and roomy cabriolet, 
with the condudeur for a living reference, and all the appliances 
for comfort, I expect to live very pleasantly, night and day, till I 
reach Marseilles. Vaucluse is on the way, and I shall visit it if 
I have time and good weather, perhaps. At Marseilles I propose 
to take the steamboat for Leghorn, and thence get directly to 
Florence, where I shall remain till I become familiar with the 
Italian, at least. I lay down my pen till all this plan of travel is 
accomplished, and so, for the present, adieu ! 



LETTER XXII. 

Chalons, on the saone. — I have broken my route to stop at 
this pretty town, and take the steamboat which goes down the 
Saone to Lyons to-morrow morning. I have travelled two days 
and nights ; but an excellent dinner and a quickened imagination 
indispose me for sleep, and, for want of better amusement in a 
strange city at night, I will pass away an hour in transcribing the 
hurried notes I have made at the stopping places. 

I chose, by advice, the part of the diligence called the ban- 
quette — a covered seat over the front of the carriage, command- 
ing all the view, and free from the dust of the lower apartments. 
The conducteur had the opposite corner, and a very ordinary- 
looking man sat between us ; the seat holding three very com- 
fortably. A lady and two gentlemen occupied the coupe ; a 
dragoon and his family, going to join his regiment, filled the 
rotonde ; and in the interior was a motley collection, whom I 
scarce saw after starting ; the occupants of the different parts of 
a diligence having no more association, even in a week's travel, 
than people living in adjoining houses in the city. 



CHALONS. 16" 



We rolled out of Paris by the faubourg St. Antoine, and at 
the end of the first post passed the first object that interested me 
— a small brick pavilion, built by Henri Quatre for the beautiful 
Gabrielle d'Estrees. It stands on a dull, level plain, not far 
from the banks of the river ; and nothing but the fact that it was 
once occupied by the woman who most enslaved the heart of the 
most chivalrous and fickle of the French monarchs, would call 
your attention to it for a moment. 

For the twenty or thirty miles which we travelled by daylight, 
I saw nothing particularly curious or beautiful. The guide-book 
is very diffuse upon the chateaux and villages on the road, but I 
saw nothing except very ordinary country-houses, and the same 
succession of small and dirty villages, steeped to the very chimneys 
in poverty. If ever I return to America, I shall make a journey to 
the west, for the pure refreshment of seeing industry and thrift. 
I am sick to the heart of pauperism and misery. Everything 
that is near the large towns in France is either splendid or 
disgusting. There is no medium in condition — nothing that 
looks like content — none of that class we define in our country 
as the "respectable." 

The moon was a little in the wane, but bright, and the night 
lovely. As we got further into the interior, the towns began to 
look more picturesque and antique ; and, with the softening 
touch of the moonlight, and the absence of beggars, the old low- 
browed buildings and half-ruined churches assumed the beauty 
they wear in description. I slept on the road, but the echo of 
the wheels in entering a post-town woke me always ; and I rarely 
have felt the picturesque more keenly than, at these sudden 
wakings from dreams, perhaps, of familiar things, finding myself 
opposite some shadowy relic of another age ; as if it were by 



168 SENS. 

magical transportation, from the fireside to some place of which I 
had heard or read the history. 

I awoke as we drove into Sens at broad daylight. We 
were just passing a glorious old pile of a cathedral, which I ran 
back to see while the diligence stopped to change horses. It is 
of pointed architecture, black with age, and crusted with moss. 
It was to this town that Thomas a Becket retired in disgrace at 
his difference with Henry the Second. There is a chapel in the 
cathedral, dedicated to his memory. The French certainly 
should have the credit of leaving things alone. This old pile 
stands as if the town in which it is built had been desolate for 
centuries : not a letter of the old sculptures chiselled out, not a 
bird unnested, not a filament of the gathering moss pulled away. 
All looks as if no human hand had been near it — almost as if no 
human eye had looked upon it. In America they would paint 
such an old church white or red, shove down the pillars, and put 
up pews, sell the pictures for fireboards, and cover the tesselated 
pavement with sand, or a home-made carpet. 

As we passed under a very ancient gate, crowning the old 
Roman ramparts of the town, a door opened, and a baker, in 
white cap and apron, thrust out his head to see us pass. His 
oven was blazing bright, and he had just taken out a batch of hot 
bread, which was smoking on the table ; and what with the 
chill of the morning air and having fasted for some fourteen 
hours, I quite envied him his vocation. The diligence, however, 
pushed on most mercilessly till twelve o'clock, the French never 
dreaming of eating before their late dejeuner — a mid-day meal 
always. When we did get it, it was a dinner in every respect — 
meats of all kinds, wine, and dessert, certainly as solid and 



AUXERRE. 169 



various as any of the American breakfasts, at which travellers 
laugh so universally. 

Auxerre is a pretty town, on a swelliug bank of the river 
Yonne ; and I had admired it as one of the most improved- 
looking villages of France . It was not till I had breakfasted 
there, and travelled a league or two towards Chalons, that I 
discovered by the guide book it was the ancient capital of Aux- 
errois, a famous town in the time of Julius Csesar, and had the 
honor of being ravaged " at different times by Attila, the 
Saracens, the Normans, and the Calvinists, vestiges of whose 
devastations may still be seen." If I had not eaten of a positively 
modern pate foie gras, and an omelette souffle, at a nice little hotel, 
with a mistress in a cap, and a coquettish French apron, I should 
forgive myself less easily for not having detected antiquity in the 
atmosphere. One imagines more readily than he realizes the 
charm of mere age without beauty. 

We were now in the province of Burgundy, and, to say 
nothing of the historical recollections, the vineyards were all 
about us that delighted the palates of the world. One does not 
dine at the Trois Freres, in the Palais Royal, without contract- 
ing a tenderness for the very name of Burgundy. I regretted 
that I was not there in the season of the grape. The vines were 
just budding, and the paysans, men and women, were scattered 
over the vineyards, loosening the ear-th about the roots, and 
driving stakes to support the young shoots. At Saint Bris I 
found the country so lovely, that I left the diligence at the post- 
house, and walked on to mount a long succession of hills on foot. 
The road sides were quite blue with the violets growing thickly 
among the grass, and the air was filled with perfume. I soon, 
got out of sight of the heavy vehicle, and made use of my leisure 



170 ST - BRIS - 



to enter the vineyards and talk to the people at their work. I 
found one old man, with all his family about him ; the little ones 
with long baskets on their backs, bringing manure, and one or 
two grown-up boys and girls raking up the earth with the 
unhandy hoe of the country, and setting it firmly around the 
roots with their wooden shoes. It was a pretty group, and I was 
very much amused with their simplicity. The old man asked my 
country, and set down his hoe in astonishment when 1 told him I 
was an American. He wondered I was not more burnt, living in 
such a hot country, and asked me what language we spoke. I 
could scarce get away from his civilities when I bade him " Good 
day." No politeness could have been more elegant than the 
manner and expression of this old peasant, and certainly nothing 
could have appeared sincerer or kinder. I kept on up the hill till 
I reached a very high point, passing on my way a troop of 
Italians, going to Paris with their organs and shows — a set of as 
ragged specimens of the picturesque as I ever saw in a picture. 
A lovely scene lay before me when I turned to look back. The 
valley, on one side of which lies St. Bris, is as round as a bowl, 
with an edge of mountain-tops absolutely even all around the 
horizon. It slopes down from every side to the centre, as if it 
had been measured and hollowed by art ; and there is not a fence 
to be seen from one side to the other, and scarcely a tree, but one 
green and almost unbroken carpet of verdure, swelling up in broad 
green slopes to the top, and realizing, with a slight difference, the 
similitude of Madame de Genlis, of the place of satiety, eternal 
green meadow and eternal blue sky. St. Bris is a, little handful 
of stone buildings around an old church ; just such a thing as a 
painter would throw into a picture — and the different-colored 
grain, and here and there a ploughed patch of rich yellow earth, 



THREE VIEWS IN ONE. 171 

and the road crossing the hollow from hill to hill like a white 
band ; and then for the life of the scene, the group of Italians, 
the cumbrous diligence, and the peasants in their broad straw 
hats, scattered over the fields — it was something quite beyond 
my usual experience of scenery and accident. I had rarely 
before found so much in one view to delight me. 

After looking a while, I mounted again, and stood on the very 
top of the hill ; and, to my surprise, there, on the other side, lay 
just such another valley, with just such a village in its bosom, 
and the single improvement of a river — the Yonne stealing 
through it, with its riband-like stream ; but all the rest of the 
valley almost exactly as I have described the other. I crossed 
a vineyard to get a view to the southeast, and once more there 
lay a deep hollow valley before me, formed like the other two, 
with its little hamlet and its vineyards and mountains — as if there 
had been three lakes in the hills, with their edges touching like 
three bowls, and the terrace on which I stood was the platform 
between them. It is a most singular formation of country, really, 
and as beautiful as it is singular. Each of these valleys might 
be ten miles across; and if the dukes of Burgundy in feudal 
times rode ever to St. Bris, I can conceive that their dukedom 
never seemed larger to them than when crossing this triple apex 
of highland. 

At Saulieu we left the usual route, and crossed over to Chagny. 
Between these two places lay a spot, which, out of my own coun- 
try, I should choose before all others for a retreat from the 
world. As it was off the route, the guide-book gave me not 
even the name, and I have discovered nothing but that the little 
hamlet is called Rockepot. It is a little nest of wild scenery, a 
mimic valley shut in by high overhanging crags, with the ruins 



172 CHALONS. 



of a battlemented and noble old castle, standing upon a rock in 
the centre, with the village of some hundred stone cottages at its 
very foot. You might stand on the towers of the ruins, and toss 
a biscuit into almost every chimney in the village. The strong 
round towers are still perfect, and the turrets and loop-holes and 
windows are still there ; and rank green vines have overrun the 
whole mass everywhere ; and nothing but the prodigious solidity 
with which it was built could have kept it so long from falling, 
for it is evidently one of the oldest castles in Burgundy. I never 
before saw anything, even in a picture, which realized perfectly 
my idea of feudal position. Here lived the lord of the domain, a 
hundred feet in the air in his rocky castle, right over the heads 
of his retainers, with the power to call in every soul that served 
him at a minute's warning, and with a single blast of his trumpet. 
I do not believe a stone has been displaced in the village for a 
hundred years. The whole thing was redolent of antiquity. We 
wound out of the place by a sharp narrow pass, and there, with- 
in a mile of this old and deserted fortress, lay the broad plains 
of Beaune and Chagny — one of the most fertile and luxurious 
parts of France. I was charmed altogether. How many things 
I have seen this side the water that I have made an involuntary 
vow in my heart to visit again, and at more leisure, before I die ! 
From Chagny it was but one post to Chalons, and here I am 
in a pretty, busy town, with broad beautiful quays, where I have 
promenaded till dark, observing this out-of-doors people ; and 
now, having written a long letter for a sleepy man, I will get to 
bed, and redeem some portion of my two nights' wakefulness. 



LETTER XXIII. 

PASSAGE DOWN THE SAONE AN ODD ACQUAINTANCE LYONS 

CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME DE FOURVIERES VIEW FROM THE 

TOWER. 

I looked out of my window the last thing before going to bed 
at Chalons, and the familiar constellation of Ursa Major never 
shone brighter, and never made me a more agreeable promise 
than that of fair weather the following day for my passage down 
the Saone. I was called at four, and it rained in torrents. The 
steamboat was smaller than the smallest I have seen in our coun- 
try, and crowded to suffocation with children, women, and lap- 
dogs. I appropriated my own trunk, and spreading my umbrella, 
sat down upon it, to endure my disappointment with what philo- 
sophy I might. A dirty-looking fellow, who must have slept in 
his clothes for a month, came up, with a loaf of coarse bread 
under his arm, and addressed me, to my sufficient astonishment, 
in Latin ! He wanted to sit under my umbrella. I looked at 
him a second time, but he had touched my passion. Latin is 
the only thing I have been driven to, in this world, that I ever 
really loved ; and the clear, mellow, unctuous pronunciation of 



174 BOAT ON THE SAONE. 



my dirty companion equally astonished and pleased me. I made 
room for him on my trunk, and, though rusted somewhat since I 
philosophized over Lucretius, we got on very tolerably. He was 
a German student, travelling to Italy, and a fine specimen of the 
class. A dirtier man I never saw, and hardly a finer or more 
intellectual face. He knew everything, and served me as a talk- 
ing guide to the history of all the places on the river. 

Instead of eating all at once, as we do on board the steamboats 
in America, the French boats have a restaurant , from which you 
order what you please, and at any hour. The cabin was set 
round with small tables, and the passengers made little parties, 
and breakfasted and dined at their own time. It is much the 
better method. I descended to the cabin very hungry about 
twelve o'clock, and was looking about for a place, when a 
French gentleman politely rose, and observing that I was alone, 
(my German friend living on bread and water only,) requested 
me to join his party at breakfast. Two young ladies and a lad 
of fourteen sat at the table, and addressing them by their familiar 
names, my polite friend requested them to give me a place ; and 
then told me that they were his daughters and son, and that he 
was travelling to Italy for the health of the younger girl, a pale, 
slender creature, apparently about eighteen. I was very well 
pleased with my position, and rarely have passed an hour more 
agreeably. French girls of the better classes never talk, but the 
father was very communicative, and a Parisian, with the cross of 
the Legion of Honor, and we found abundance of matter for con- 
versation. They have stopped at Lyons, where I write at pre- 
sent, and I shall probably join their party to Marseilles. 

The clouds broke away after mid-day, and the banks of the 
river brightened wonderfully with the change. The Saone is 



SCENERY ABOVE LYONS. 175 



about the size of the Mohawk, but not half so beautiful ; at least 
for the greater part of its course. Indeed, you can hardly com- 
pare American with European rivers, for the charm is of another 
description, quite. With us it is nature only, here it is almost 
all art. Our rivers are lovely, because the outline of the shore is 
graceful, and particularly because the vegetation is luxuriant. 
The hills are green, the foliage deep and lavish, the rocks grown 
over with vines or moss, the mountains in the distance covered 
with pines and other forest-trees ; everything is wild, and nothing 
looks bare or sterile. The rivers of France are crowned on every 
height with ruins, and in the bosom of every valley lies a cluster 
of picturesque stone cottages ; but the fields are naked, and there 
are no trees ; the mountains are barren and brown, and everything 
looks as if the dwellings had been deserted by the people, and 
nature had at the same time gone to decay. I can conceive 
nothing more melancholy than the views upon the Saone, seen, 
as I saw them, though vegetation is out everywhere, and the 
banks should be beautiful if ever. As we approached Lyons the 
river narrowed and grew bolder, and the last ten miles were 
enchanting. Naturally the shores at this part of the Saone are 
exceedingly like the highlands of the Hudson above West Point. 
Abrupt hills rise from the river's edge, and the windings are 
sharp and constant. But imagine the highlands of the Hudson 
crowned with antique chateaux, and covered to the very top with 
terraces and summer-houses and hanging-gardens, gravel walks 
and beds of flowers, instead of wild pines and precipices, and you 
may get a very correct idea of the Saone above Lyons. You 
emerge from one of the dark passes of the river by a sudden 
turn, and there before you lies this large city, built on both banks, 
at the foot and on the sides of mountains. The bridges are fine, 



176 LYONS. 



and the broad, crowded quays, all along the edges of the river, 
have a beautiful effect. We landed at the stone stairs, and 
I selected a hotel by chance, where I have found seven Ameri- 
cans of my acquaintance. We have been spending the evening 
at the rooms of a townsman of mine, very pleasantly. 



There is a great deal of magnificence at Lyons, in the way of 
quays, promenades, and buildings ; but its excessive filthiness 
spoils everything. One could scarce admire a Venus in such an 
atmosphere ; and you cannot find room to stand in Lyons where 
you have not some nauseating odor. I was glad to escape from 
the lower streets, and climb up the long staircases to the ob- 
servatory that overhangs the town. From the base of this eleva- 
tion the descent of the river is almost a precipice. The houses 
hang on the side of the steep hill, and their doors enter from the 
long alleys of stone staircases by which you ascend. On every 
step, and at almost every foot of the way, stood a beggar. They 
might have touched hands from the quay to the summit. If 
they were not such objects of real wretchedness, it would be 
laughable to hear the church calendar of saints repeated so 
volubly. The lame hobble after you, the blind stumble in your 
way, the sick lie and stretch out their hands from the wall, and 
all begin in the name of the Virgin Mary, and end with " Mon 
bon Monsieur," and " un petit sous." I confined my charities to 
a lovely child, that started out from its mother's lap, and ran 
down to meet us — a dirty and ragged little thing, but with the 
large dark eyes of the province ; and a skin, where one could see 
it, of the clearest nut-brown teint. Her mother had five such, 



CHURCHES AT LYONS. 177 



and each of them, to any one who loved children, would have 
been a treasure of beauty and interest. 

It was holy-week, and the* church of Notre Dame de Four- 
vieres, which stands on the summit of the hill, was crowded with 
people. "We went in for a moment, and sat down on a bench to 
rest. My companion was a Swiss captain of artillery, who was 
a passenger in the boat, a very splendid fellow, with a mustache 
that he might have tied behind his ears. He had addressed me 
at the hotel, and proposed that we should visit the curiosities of 
the town together. He was a model of a manly figure, athletic, 
and soldier-like, and standing near him was to get the focus of all 
the dark eyes in the congregation. 

The new square tower stands at the side of the church, and 
rises to the height of perhaps sixty feet. The view from it is 
said to be one of the finest in the world. 1 have seen more ex- 
tensive ones, but never one that comprehended more beauty and 
interest. Lyons lies at the foot, with the Saone winding through 
its bosom in abrupt curves ; the Rhone comes down from the 
north on the other side of the range of mountains, and meeting 
the Saone in a broad stream below the town, they stretch off to 
the south, through a diversified landscape ; the Alps rise from 
the east like the edges of a thunder-cloud, and the mountains of 
Savoy fill up the interval to the Rhone. All about the foot of 
the monument lie gardens, of exquisite cultivation ; and above 
and below the city the villas of the rich ; giving you altogether 
as delicious a nucleus for a broad circle of scenery as art and 
nature could create, and one sufficiently in contrast with the bar- 
renness of the rocky circumference to enhance the charm, and 
content you with your position. Half way down the hill lies an 
old monastery, with a lovely garden walled in from the world ; 
8* 



178 MONASTERY. 



and several of the brotherhood were there, idling up and down 
the shaded alleys, with their black dresses sweeping the ground, 
possibly in holy contemplation. The river was covered with 
boats, the bells were ringing to church, the glorious old cathedral, 
so famous for its splendor, stood piled up, with its arches and 
gray towers, in the square below ; the day was soft, sunny, and 
warm, and existence was a blessing. I leaned over the balus- 
trade, I know not how long, looking down upon the scene about 
me ; and I shall ever remember it as one of those few unalloyed 
moments, when the press of care was taken off my mind, and the 
chain of circumstances was strong enough to set aside both the 
past and the future, and leave me to the quiet enjoyment of the 
present. I have found such hours " few and far between." 



LETTER XXIV. 

DEPARTURE FROM LYONS BATTEAUX DE POSTE RIVER SCENERY 

VILLAGE OF CONDRIEU VIENNE VALENCE POINT ST. ESPRIT 

DAUPHINY AND LANGUEDOC DEMI-FETE DAY, ETC. 

I found a day and a half quite enough for Lyons. The views 
from the mountain and the river were the only things that 
pleased me. I made the usual dry visit to the library and the 
museum, and admired the Hotel de Vifle, and the new theatre, 
and the front of the Maison de Tolosan, that so struck the fancy 
- of Joseph II., and having " despatched the lions," like a true 
cockney traveller, I was too happy to escape the oiFensive smells 
of the streets, and get to my rooms. One does not enjoy much 
comfort within doors either. Lyons is a great imitation metro- 
polis — a sort of second-hand Paris. I am not very difficult to 
please, but I found the living intolerable. It was an affectation 
of abstruse cookery throughout. We sat down to what is called 
the best table in the place, and it was a series of ludicrous traves- 
ties, from the soup to the salad. One can eat well in the country, 
because the dishes are simple, and he gets the natural taste of 
things ; but to come to a table covered with artificial dishes, 
which he has been accustomed to see in their perfection, and to 



180 TRAVELLING PARTY. 



taste and send away everything in disgust, is a trial of temper 
which is reserved for the traveller at Lyons. 

The scenery on the river, from Lyons to Avignon, has great 
celebrity, and I had determined to take that course to the south. 
Jusfc at this moment, however, the Rhone had been pronounced 
too low, and the steamboats were stopped. I probably made the 
last passage by steam on the Saone, for we ran aground repeatedly, 
and were compelled to wait till horses could be procured to draw 
the boat into deep water. It was quite amusing to see with what 
a regular, business-like air, the postillions fixed their traces to 
the prow, and whipped into the middle of the river. A small 
boat was my only resource, and I found a man on the quay who 
plied the river in what is called batteaux dc poste, rough shallops 
with fiat bottoms, which are sold for firewood on their arrival, the 
rapidity of the Khone rendering a return against the current next 
to impossible. The sight of the frail contrivance in which I was 
to travel nearly two hundred miles, rather startled me, but the 
man assured me he had several other passengers, and two ladies 
among them. I paid the arr/ies, or earnest money, and was at 
the river-stairs punctually at four the next morning. 

To my very sincere pleasure the two ladies were the daughters 
of my polite friend and fellow passenger from Chalons They 
were already on board, and the little shalop sat deep in the water 
with her freight. Besides these, there were two young French 
chasseurs going home on leave of absence, a pretty Parisian dress- 
maker flying from the cholera, a masculine woman, the wife of a 
dragoon, and my friend the captain. We pushed out into the 
current, and drifted slowly down under the bridges, without oars, 
the padrone quietly smoking his pipe at the helm. In a few 
minutes we were below the town, and here commenced again the 



BREAKFAST ON THE ROAD. 181 



cultivated and ornamented banks I had so much admired on my 
approach to Lyons from the other side. The thin haze was just 
stirring from the river's surface, the sunrise flush was on the sky, 
the air was genial and impregnated with the smell of grass and 
flowors, and the little changing landscapes, as we followed the 
stream, broke upon us like a series of exquisite dioramas. The 
atmosphere was like Doughty's pictures, exactly. I wished a 
thousand times for that delightful artist, that he might see how 
richly the old chateaux and their picturesque appurtenances filled 
up the scene. It would have given a new turn to his pencil. 

We soon arrived at the junction of the rivers, and, as we 
touched the rapid current of the Rhone, the little shallop yielded 
to its sway, and redoubled its velocity. The sun rose clear, the 
cultivation grew less and less, the hills began to look distant and 
barren, and our little party became sociable in proportion. We 
closed around the invalid, who sat wrapped in a cloak in the 
stern, leaning on her father's shoulder, and talked of Paris and 
its pleasures — a theme of which the French are never weary. 
Time passed delightfully. Without being decidedly pretty, our 
two Parisiennes were quiet-mannered and engaging ; and the 
younger one particularly, whose pale face and deeply-sunken eyes 
gave her a look of melancholy interest, seemed to have thought 
much, and to feel, besides, that her uncertain health gave her a 
privilege of overstepping the rigid reserve of an unmarried girl. 
She talks freely, and with great delicacy of expression and 
manner. 

We ran ashore at the little village of Condrieu to breakfast. 
We were assailed on stepping out of the boat by the demoiselles 
of two or three rival auberges — nice-looking, black-eyed girls, in 
white aprons, who seized us by the arm, and pulled each to her 



182 LOCALITIES OF ANTIQUITY. 



own door, with torrents of unintelligible patois. "We left it to 
the captain, who selected the best-looking leader, and we were 
soon seated around a table covered with a lavish breakfast ; the 
butter, cheese, and wine excellent, at least. A merrier party, I 
am sure, never astonished the simple people of Condrieu. The 
pretty dress-maker was full of good-humor and politeness, and 
delighted at the envy with which the rural belles regarded her 
knowing Parisian cap ; the chasseurs sang the popular songs of 
the army, and joked with the maids of the auberge ; the captain 
was inexhaustibly agreeable, and the hour given us by the 
padrone was soon gone. We embarked with a thousand adieus 
from the pleased people, and altogether it was more like a scene 
from Wilhelm Meister, than a passage from real life. 

The wind soon rose free and steady from the north-west, and 
with a spread sail we ran past Viemie^ at ten miles in the hour. 
This was the metropolis of my old friends, " the Allobrogues," in 
Cesar's Commentaries. I could not help wondering at the 
feelings with which I was passing over such classic ground. The 
little dress-maker was giving us an account of her fright at the 
oholera, and every one in the boat was in agonies of laughter. I 
looked at the guide-book to find the name of the place, and the 
first glance at the word carried me back to my old school-desk at 
Andover, and conjured up for a moment the redolent classic 
interest with which I read the history of the land I was now 
hurrying through. That a laugh with a modern grisette should 
engross me entirely, at the moment I was traversing such a spot, 
is a possibility the man may realize much more readily than the 
school-boy. A new roar of merriment from my companions 
plucked me back effectually from Andover to the Rhone, and I 
thought no more of Gaul or its great historian. 



PICTURESQUE CHATEAU. 183 



We floated on during the day, passing chateaux and ruins 
constantly ; but finding the country barren and rocky to a dismal 
degree, I can not well imagine how the Rhone has acquired its 
reputation for beauty. It has been sung by the poets more than 
any other river in France, and the various epithets that have 
been applied to it have become so common, that you can not 
mention it without their rising to your lips ; but the Saone and 
the Seine are incomparably more lovely, and I am told the 
valleys of the Loire are the most beautiful part of France. 
From its junction with the Saone to the Mediterranean, the 
Rhone is one stretch of barrenness. 

We passed a picturesque chateau, built very widely on a rock 
washed by the river, called " La Roche de Glwnf and twilight 
soon after fell, closing in our view to all but the river edge. The 
wind died away, but the stars were bright and the air mild ; and, 
quite fatigued to silence, our little party leaned on the sides of 
the boat, and waited till the current should float us down to our 
resting-place for the night. We reached Valence at ten, and with 
a merry 'dinner and supper in one, which kept us up till after 
midnight, we got to our coarse but clean beds, and slept soundly. 

The following forenoon we ran under the Pont St. Esprit, an 
experiment the guide-book calls very dangerous. The Rhone is 
rapid and noisy here, and we shot under the arches of the fine old 
structure with great velocity ; but the " Rapids of the St. 
Lawrence" are passed constantly without apprehension by 
travellers in America, and those of the Rhone are a mere mill- 
race in comparison. We breakfasted just below, at a village 
where we could scarce understand a syllable, the patois was so 
decided, and at sunset we were far down between the provinces 
of Dauphiny and Languedoc, with the villages growing thicker 



184 FRENCH PATOIS. 



and greener, and a high mountain within ten or fifteen miles, 
covered with snow nearly to the base. We stopped opposite the 
old castle of Rochemeuse to pay the droit. It was a demi-fete 
day, and the inhabitants of a village back from the river had 
come out to the green bank in their holyday costume for a revel. 
The bank swelled up from the stream to a pretty wood, and the 
green sward between was covered with these gay people, arrested 
in their amusements by our arrival. We jumped out for a 
moment, and I walked up the bank and endeavored to make the 
acquaintance of a strikingly handsome woman about thirty, but 
the patois was quite too much. After several vain attempts to 
understand each other, she laughed and turned on her heel, and 
I followed the call- of the padrone to the batteau. For five or six 
miles below, the river passed through a kind of meadow, and an 
air more loaded with fragrance I never breathed. The sun was 
just down, and with the mildness of the air, and quiet glide of 
the boat on the water, it was quite enchanting. Conversation 
died away, and I went forward and lay down in the bow alone, 
with a fit of desperate musing. It is as singular as it is certain, 
that the more one enjoys the loveliness of a foreign land, the 
more he feels how absolutely his heart is at home in his own 
country. 



tr 



LETTER XXV. 

INFLUENCE OF A BOATMAN THE TOWN OF ARLES ROMAN RUINS 

THE CATHEDRAL MARSEILLES THE PASS OF OLLIOULES THE 

VINEYARDS TOULON ANTIBES LAZARETTO VILLA FRANCA, 

ETC. 

I entered Avignon after a delicious hour on the Rhone, quite 
in the mood to do poetical homage to its associations. My 
dreams of Petrarch and Vaucluse were interrupted by a scene 
between my friend the captain, and a stout boatman, who had 
brought his baggage from the batteau. The result was an appeal 
to the mayor, who took the captain aside after the matter was 
argued, and told him in his ear that he must compromise the 
matter, for he dared not give a judgment in his favor ! The 
man had demanded twelve francs where the regulations allowed 
him but one, and palpable as the imposition was, the magistrate 
refused to interfere. The captain curled his mustache and 
walked the room in a terrible passion, and the boatman, an 
herculean fellow, eyed him with a look of assurance which quite 
astonished me. After the case was settled, I asked an explana- 
tion of the mayor. He told me frankly, that the fellow belonged 



186 ARLES. 

to a powerful class of men of the lowest description, who, having 
declared first for the present government, were and would be 
supported by it in almost any question where favor could be 
shown — that all the other classes of inhabitants were mal- 
contents, and that, between positive strength and royal favor, the 
boatmen and their party had become too powerful even for the 
ordinary enforcement of the law. 

The following day was so sultry and warm, that I gave up all 
idea of a visit to Vaucluse. We spent the morning under the 
trees which stand before the door of the cafe in the village 
square, and at noon we took the steamboat upon the Rhone for 
Aries. An hour or two brought us to this ancient town, where 
we were compelled to wait till the next day, the larger boat 
which goes hence by the mouths of the Rhone to Marseilles, 
being out of order. 

We left our baggage in the boat, and I walked up with the 
captain to see the town. An officer whom we addressed for 
information on the quay politely offered to be our guide, and we 
passed three or four hours rambling about, with great pleasure. 
Our first object was the Roman ruins, for which the town is 
celebrated. We traversed several streets, so narrow, that the 
old time-worn houses on either side seemed to touch at the top, 
and in the midst of a desolate and poverty-stricken neighborhood, 
we came suddenly upon a noble Roman amphitheatre of gigantic 
dimensions, and sufficiently preserved to be a picturesque ruin. 
It was built on the terrace of a hill, overlooking the Rhone. 
From the towers of the gateway, the view across the river into 
the lovely province of Languedoc, is very extensive. The arena 
is an excavation of perhaps thirty feet in depth, and the rows of 
seats, all built of vast blocks of stone, stretch round it in retreat- 



THE CATHEDRAL. 187 



ing and rising platforms to the surface of the hill. The lower 
story is surrounded with dens ; and the upper terrace is enclosed 
with a circle of small apartments, like boxes in a theatre, opening 
by handsome arches upon the scene. It is the ruin of a noble 
structure, and, even without the help of the imagination, exceed- 
ingly impressive. It seems to be at present turned into a 
play-ground. The dens and cavities were full of black-eyed and 
happy creatures, hiding and hallooing with all the delightful spirit 
and gayety of French children. Probably it was never appro- 
priated to a better use. 

We entered the cathedral in returning. It is an antique, and 
considered a very fine one. The twilight was just falling ; 
and the candles burning upon the altar, had a faint, dull glare, 
making the dimness of the air more perceptible. I walked up 
the long aisle to the side chapel, without observing that my 
companions had left me, and, quite tired with my walk, seated 
myself against one of the Gothic pillars, enjoying the quiet of the 
place, and the momentary relief from exciting objects. It struck 
me presently that there was a dead silence in the church, and, as 
much to hear the sound of English as for any better motive, I 
approached the priest's missal, which lay open on a stand near 
me, and commenced translating a familiar psalm aloud. My 
voice echoed through the building with a fullness which startled 
me, and looking over my shoulder, I saw that a simple, poor old 
woman was kneeling in the centre of the church, praying alone. 
She had looked up at my interruption of the silence of the place, 
but her beads still slipped slowly through her fingers, and, feeling 
that I was intruding possibly between a sincere worshipper and 
her Maker, I withdrew to the side aisle, and made my way softly 
out of the cathedral. 



188 MARSEILLES. 



Aries appears to have modernized less than any town I have 
seen in France. The streets and the inhabitants look as if they 
had not changed for a century. The dress of the women is 
very peculiar ; the waist of the gown coming up to a point 
behind, between the shoulder blades, and consequently very short 
in front, and the high cap bound to the head with broad velvet 
ribands, suffering nothing but the jet black curls to escape over 
the forehead. As a class, they are the handsomest women I have 
seen. Nothing could be prettier than the small-featured lively 
brunettes we saw sitting on the stone benches at every door. 

We ran down the next morning, in a few hours to Marseilles. 
It was a cloudy, misty day, and I did not enjoy, as I expected, 
the first view of the Mediterranean from the mouths of the 
Rhone. "We put quite out" into the swell of the sea, and the pas- 
sengers were all strewn on the deck in the various gradations of 
sickness. My friend the captain, and myself, had the only con- 
stant stomachs on board. I was very happy to distinguish Mar- 
seilles through the mist, and as we approached nearer, the rocky 
harbor and the islands of Chateau cflf and Pomegue, with the 
fortress at the mouth of the harbor, came out gradually from the 
mist, and the view opened to a noble amphitheatre of rocky 
mountains, in whose bosom lies Marseilles at the edge of the sea. 
We ran into the narrow cove which forms the inner harbor, pass- 
ing an American ship, the " William Penn," just arrived from 
Philadelphia, and lying in quarantine. My blood started at the 
sight of the starred flag ; and as we passed closer and I read the 
name upon her stern, a thousand recollections of that delightful 
city sprang to my heart, and I leaned over to her from the boat's 
side, with a feeling of interest and pleasure to which the foreign 



PARTING WITH COMPANIONS. 189 



tongue that called me to bid adieu to newer friends, seemed an 
unwelcome interruption. 

I parted from my pleasant Parisian friend and his family, how- 
ever, with real regret. They were polite and refined, and had 
given me their intimacy voluntarily and without reserve. I 
shook hands with them on the quay, and wished the pale and 
quiet invalid better health, with more of feeling than is common 
with acquaintances of a day. I believe them kind and sincere, 
and 1 have not found these qualities growing so thickly in the 
world that I can thrust aside anything that resembles them, with 
a willing mistrust. 

The quay of Marseilles is one of the most varied scenes to be 
met with in Europe. Vessels of all nations come trading to its 
port, and nearly every costume in the world may be seen in its 
busy crowds. I was surprised at the number of Greeks. Their 
picturesque dresses and dark fine faces meet you at every step, 
and it would be difficult, if it were not for the shrinking eye, to 
believe them capable of an ignoble thought. The mould of the 
race is one for heroes, but if all that is said of them be true, the 
blood has become impure. Of the two or three hundred I must 
have seen at Marseilles, I scarce remember one whose counte- 
nance would not have been thought remarkable. 



I have remained six days in Marseilles by the advice of the 
Sardinian consul, who assured me that so long a residence in the 
south of France, is necessary to escape quarantine for the 
cholera, at the ports or on the frontiers of Italy. I have obtained 
his certificate to-day, and depart to-moiTOW for Nice. My forced 



190 PASS OF OLLIOULES. 

sejour here has been far from an amusing or a willing one. The 
" mistral" has blown chilly and with suffocating dryness, so that 
I have scarce breathed freely since I entered the town, and the 
streets, though handsomely laid out and built, are intolerable from 
the dust. The sun scorches your skin to a blister, and the wind 
chills your blood to the bone. There are beautiful public walks, 
which, at the more moist seasons, must be delightful, but at 
present the leaves on the trees are all white, and you cannot keep 
your eyes open long enough to see from one end of the prom- 
enade to the other. Within doors, it is true, I have found 
everything which could compensate for such evils ; and I shall 
carry away pleasant recollections of the hospitality of the Messrs. 
Fitch, and others of my countrymen, living here — gentlemen 
whose courtesies are well-remembered by every American 
traveller through the south of France. 



I sank into the corner of the coupe of the diligence for Toulon, 
at nine o'clock in the evening, and awoke with the gray of the 
dawn at the entrance of the pass of Ollioules, one of the wildest 
defiles I ever saw. The gorge is the bed of a winter torrent, 
and you travel three miles or more between two mountains seem- 
ingly cleft asunder, on a road cut out a little above the stream, 
with naked rock to the height of two or three hundred feet 
almost perpendicularly above you. Nothing could be more bare 
and desolate than the whole pass, and nothing could be richer 
or more delightfully cultivated than the low valleys upon which it 
opens. It is some four or five miles hence to Toulon, and we 
traversed the road by sunrise, the soft, gray light creeping through 



TOULON. 



191 



the olive and orange trees with which the fields are laden, and the 
peasants just coming out to their early labor. You see no brute 
animal here except the mule ; and every countryman you meet 
is accompanied by one of these serviceable little creatures, often 
quite hidden from sight by the enormous load he carries, or 
pacing patiently along with a master on his back, who is by far 
the larger of the two. 

The vineyards begin to look delightfully ; for the thick black 
stump which was visible over the fields I have hitherto passed, is 
in these warm valleys covered already with masses of luxuriant 
vine leaves, and the hill sides are lovely with the light and tender 
verdure. I saw here for the first time, the olive and date trees 
in perfection. They grow in vast orchards planted regularly, and 
the olive resembles closely the willow, and reaches about the 
same height and shape. The leaves are as slender but not quite 
so long, and the color is more dusky, like the bloom upon a 
grape. Indeed, at a short distance, the whole tree looks like a 
mass of untouched fruit. 

I was agreeably disappointed in Toulon. It is a rural town 
with a harbor — not the dirty seaport one naturally expects to find 
it. The streets are the cleanest I have seen in France, some of 
them lined with trees, and the fountains all over it freshen the 
eye delightfully. We had an hour to spare, and with Mr. Doyle, 
an Irish gentleman, who had been my travelling companion, since 
I parted with my friend the Swiss, I made the circuit of the 
quays. They were covered with French naval officers and 
soldiers, promenading and conversing in the lively manner of 
this gayest of nations. A handsome child, of perhaps six years, 
was selling roses at one of the corners, and for a sous, all she 
demanded, I bought six of the most superb damask buds just 



192 ANT1BES. 



breaking into flower. They were the first I had seen from the 
open air since I left America, and I have not often purchased so 
much pleasure with a copper coin. 

Toulon was interesting to me as the place where Napoleon's 
career began. The fortifications are very imposing. We passed 
out of the town over the draw-bridge, and were again in the 
midst of a lovely landscape, with an air of bland and exhilarating 
softness, and everything that could delight the eye. The road 
runs along the shore of the Mediterranean, and the fields aro 
green to the water edge. 

We arrived at Antibes to-day at noon, within fifteen miles of 
the frontier of Sardinia. We have run through most of the 
south of France, and have found it all like a garden. The thing 
most like it in our country is the neighborhood of Boston, 
particularly the undulated country about Brookline and Dorches- 
ter. Remove all the stone fences from that sweet country, put 
here and there an old chateau on an eminence, and change the 
pretty white mock cottages of gentlemen, for the real stone 
cottages of peasantry, and you have a fair picture of the scenery 
of this celebrated shore. The Mediterranean should be added 
as a distance, with its exquisite blue, equalled by nothing but an 
American sky in a July noon — its crowds of sail, of every shape 
and nation, and the Alps in the horizon crested with snow, like 
clouds half touched by the sun. It is really a delicious climate. 
Out of the scorching sun the air is bracing and cool ; and though 
my ears have been blistered in walking up the hills in a travelling 
cap, I have scarcely experienced an uncomfortable sensation of 
heat, and this in my winter dress, with flannels and a surtout, as 
I have worn them for the six months past in Paris. The air 



COAST OF MEDITERRANEAN. 193 



could not be tempered more accurately for enjoyment. I regret 
to go in doors. I regret to sleep it away. 



Antibes was fortified by the celebrated Vauban, and it looks 
impregnable enough to my unscientific eye. If the portcullises 
were drawn up, I would not undertake to get into the town with 
the full consent of the inhabitants. We walked around the 
ramparts which are washed by* the Mediterranean, and got an 
appetite in the sea-breeze, which we would willingly have 
dispensed with. I dislike to, abuse people, but I must say that 
the cuisine of Madame Agarra, at the " Gold Eagle," is rather 
the worst I have fallen upon in my travels. Her price, as is 
usual in France, was proportionably exorbitant. My Irish friend, 
who is one of the most religious gentlemen of his country I ever 
met, came as near getting into a passion with his supper and bill, 
as was possible for a temper so well disciplined. For myself, 
having acquired only polite French, I can but " look daggers' 
when I am abused. We depart presently for Nice, in a rieketty 
barouche, with post-horses, the courier, or post-coach, going no 
farther. It is a roomy old affair, that has had pretensions to 
style some time since Henri Quatre, but the arms on its panels 
are illegible now, and the ambitious driving-box is occupied by 
the humble materials to remedy a probable break-down by the 
way. The postillion is cracking his whip impatiently, my friend 
has called me twice, and I must put up my pencil. 



194 FORCED TO RETURN. 



Antibes again ! We have returned here after an unsuccessful 
attempt to enter the Sardinian dominions. We were on the road 
by ten in the morning, and drove slowly along the shores of the 
Mediterranean, enjoying to the utmost the heavenly weather and 
the glorious scenery about us. The driver pointed out to us a 
few miles from Antibes, the very spot on which Napoleon landed 
on his return from Elba, and the tree, a fine old olive, under 
which he slept three hours, before commencing his march. We 
arrived at the Pont de Var about one, and crossed the river, but 
here we were met by a guard of Sardinian soldiers, and our 
passports were demanded. The commissary came from the 
guard -house with a long pair of tongs, and receiving them open, 
read them at the longest possible distance. They were then 
handed back to us in the same manner, and we were told we 
could not pass. We then handed him our certificates of quar- 
antine at Marseilles ; but were told it availed nothing, a new 
order having arrived from Turin that very morning, to admit no 
travellers from infected or suspected places across the frontier. 
We asked if there were no means by which we could pass ; but 
the commissary only shook his head, ordered us not to dismount 
on the Sardinian side of the river, and shut his door. We 
turned about and recrossed the bridge in some perplexity. The 
French commissary at St. Laurent, the opposite village, received 
OS with a suppressed smile, and informed us that several parties 
of travellers, among others an English gentleman and his wife 
and sister, were at the auberge, waiting for an answer from the 
Prefect of Nice, having been turned back in the same manner 
since morning. We drove up, and they advised us to send our 
passports by the postillion, with a letter to the consuls of our 



LAZARETTO. 195 



respective nations, requesting information, which we did imme- 
diately. 

Nice is three miles from St. Laurent, and as we could not 
expect an answer for several hours, we amused ourselves with a 
stroll along the banks of the Var to the Mediterranean. The 
Sardinian side is bold, and wooded to the tops of the hills very 
richly. We kept alo^g a mile or more through the vineyards, 
and returned in time to receive a letter from the American con- 
sul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but advising us to 
return to Antibes, and sail thence for Villa Franca, a lazaretto 
in the neighborhood of Nice, whence we could enter Italy, after 
seven days quarantine ! By this time several travelling-carriages 
had collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned back 
together. We are now at the " Gold Eagle," deliberating. 
Some have determined to give up their object altogether, but the 
rest of us sail to-morrow morning in a fishing-boat for the 
lazaretto. 



Lazaretto, Villa Franca. — There were but eight of the 
twenty or thirty travellers stopped at the bridge who thought it 
worth while to persevere. We are all here in this pest-house, and 
a motley mixture of nations it is. There are two young Sicilians 
returning from college to Messina ; a Belgian lad of seventeen, 
just started on his travels ; two aristocratic young Frenchmen, 
very elegant and very ignorant of the world, running down to 
Italy in their own carriage, to avoid the cholera ; a middle-aged 
surgeon in the British navy, very cool and very gentlemanly ; a 
vulgar Marseilles trader, and myself. 



196 ABSURD HINDRANCES. 



We were from seven in the morning till two, getting away from 
Antibes. Our difficulties during the whole day are such a prac- 
tical comparison of the freedom of European states and ours, that 
I may as well detail them. 

First of all, our passports were to be vised by the police. We 
were compelled to stand an hour with our hats off, in a close, 
dirty office, waiting our turn for this favor. The next thing was 
to get the permission of the prefect of the marine to embark ; and 
this occupied another hour. Thence we were taken to the 
health-office, where a bill of health was made out for eight persons 
going to a lazaretto ! The padrone's freight duties were then 
to be settled, and we went back and forth between the Sardinian 
consul and the French, disputing these for another hour or more. 
Our baggage was piled upon the charrette, at last, to be taken to 
the boat. The quay is outside the gate, and here are stationed 
the douanes, or custom-officers, who ordered our trunks to be 
taken from the cart, and searched them from top to bottom. 
After a half hour spent in repacking our effects in the open street, 
amid a crowd of idle spectators, we were suffered to proceed. 
Almost all these various gentlemen expect a fee, and some de- 
mand a heavy one ; and all this trouble and expense of time and 
money to make a voyage of fifteen miles in a fishing-boat ! 

We hoisted the fisherman's latteen sail, and put out of the little 
harbor in very bad temper. The wind was fair, and we ran along 
the shore for a couple of hours, till we came to Nice, where we 
were to stop for permission to go to the lazaretto. We were 
hailed, off the mole, with a trumpet, and suffered to pass. 
Doubling a little point, half a mile farther on, we ran into the 
bay of Villa Franca, a handful of houses at the base of an 
amphitheatre of mountains. A little round tower stood in the 



FEAR OF CONTAGION. 197 



centre of the harbor, built upon a rock, and connected with the 
town by a draw-bridge, and we were landed at a staircase outside, 
by which we mounted to show our papers to the health-officer. 
The interior was a little circular yard, separated from an office on 
the town side by an iron grating, and looking out on the sea by 
two embrasures for cannon. Two strips of water and the sky 
above was our whole prospect for the hour that we waited here. 
The cause of the delay was presently explained by clouds of 
smoke issuing from the interior. The tower filled, and a more 
nauseating odor I never inhaled. We were near suffocating with 
the intolerable smell, and the quantity of smoke deemed necessary 
to secure his majesty's officers against contagion. 

A cautious-looking old gentleman, with gray hair, emerged at 
last from the smoke, with a long cane-pole in his hand, and, 
coughing at every syllable, requested us to insert our passports 
in the split at the extremity, which he thrust through the gate. 
This being done, we asked him for bread. We had breakfasted 
at seven, and it was now sundown — near twelve hours fast. 
Several of my companions had been seasick with the swell of the 
Mediterranean, in coming from Antibes, and all were faint with 
hunger and exhaustion. For myself, the villainous smell of our 
purification had made me sick, and I had no appetite ; but the 
rest ate very voraciously of a loaf of coarse bread, which was 
extended to us with a tongs and two pieces of paper. 

After reading our passports, the magistrate informed us that 
he had no orders to admit us to the lazaretto, and we must lie in 
our boat till he could send a messenger to Nice with our passports 
and obtain permission. We opened upon him, however, with such 
a flood of remonstrance, and with such an emphasis from hunger 
and fatigue, that he consented to admit us temporarily on his own 



198 SLEEP OUT OF DOORS. 



responsibility, and gave the boatmen orders to row back to a long, 
low stone building, which we had observed at the foot of a preci- 
pice at the entrance to the harbor. 

He was there before us, and as we mounted the stone ladder 
he pointed through the bars of a large inner gate to a single 
chamber, separated from the rest of the building, and promising 
to send us something to eat in the course of the evening, left us 
to take possession. Our position was desolate enough. The 
building was new, and the plaster still soft and wet. There was 
not an article of furniture in the chamber, and but a single win- 
dow ; the floor was of brick, and the air as damp within as a cellar. 
The alternative was to remain out of doors, in the small yard, 
walled up thirty feet on three sides, and washed by the sea on 
the other ; and here, on a long block of granite, the softest thing 
I could find, I determined to make an al fresco night of it. 

Bread, cheese, wine, and cold meat, seethed, Italian fashion, in 
nauseous oil, arrived about nine o'clock ; and, by the light of a 
candle standing in a boot, we sat around on the brick floor, and 
supped very merrily. Hunger had brought even our two French 
exquisites to their fare, and they ate well. The navy surgeon 
had seen service, and had no qualms ; the Sicilians were from a 
German university, and were not delicate ; the Marseilles trader 
knew no better ; and we should have been less contented with a 
better meal. It was superfluous to abuse it. 

A steep precipice hangs immediately over the lazaretto, and 
the horn of the half moon was just dipping below it, as I 
stretched myself to sleep. With a folded coat under me, and a 
carpet-bag for a pillow, I soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till 
sunrise. My companions had chosen shelter, but all were happy 
to be early risers. "We mounted our wall upon the sea, and 



LAZARETTO OCCUPATIONS. 199 



promenaded till the sun was broadly up, and the breeze from the 
Mediterranean sharpened our appetites, and then finishing the 
relics of our supper, we waited with what patience we might the 
appearance of our breakfast. 



The magistrate arrived at twelve, yesterday, with a commissary 
from Villa Franca, who is to be our victualler during the quaran- 
tine. He has enlarged our limits, by a stone staircase and an 
immense chamber, on condition that we pay for an extra guard, 
iu the shape of a Sardinian soldier, who is to sleep in our room, 
and eat at our table. By the way, we have a table, and four 
rough benches, and these, with three single mattresses, are all 
the furniture we can procure. We are compelled to sleep across 
the latter of course, to give every one his share. 

We have come down very contentedly to our situation, and I 
have been exceedingly amused at the facility with which eight 
such different tempers can amalgamate, upon compulsion. Our 
small quarters bring us in contact continually, and we harmonize 
like schoolboys. At this moment the Marseilles trader and the 
two Frenchmen are throwing stones at something that is floating 
out with the tide ; the surgeon has dropped his Italian grammar 
to decide upon which is the best shot ; the Belgian is fishing off 
the wall, with a pin hook and a bit of cheese ; and the two 
Sicilians are talking lingua franca , at the top of their voices, to 
Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands coquetting on the 
pier just outside the limits. I have got out my books and port- 
folio, and taken possession of the broad stair, depending on the 
courtesy of my companions to jump over me and my papers wken 



200 DELICIOUS SUNDAY. 



they go up and down. I sit here most of the day laughing at the 
fun below, and writing or reading alternately. The climate is 
too delicious for discontent. Every breath is a pleasure. The 
hills of the amphitheatre opposite to us are covered with olive, 
lemon, and orange trees ; and in the evening, from the time 
the land breeze commences to blow off shore until ten or eleven, 
the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume of the orange- 
blossom, than which nothing could be more grateful. Nice is 
called the hospital of Europe ; and truly, under this divine sky, 
and with the inspiriting vitality and softness of the air, and all that 
nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon the hills, it is 
the place, if there is one in the world, where the drooping spirit 
of the invalid must revive and renew. At this moment the sun 
has crept from the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, 
and we shall scent presently the spicy wind from the shore. I 
close my book to go upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has 
mounted already with the same object, to catch the first breath 
that blows seaward. 

It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think 
my eyes ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long, lazy swell 
comes in from the Meditereanean as smooth as glass ; the sails of 
a beautiful yacht, belonging to an English nobleman at Nice, 
and lying becalmed just now in the bay, are hanging motionless 
about the masts ; the sky is without a speck, the air just seems to 
me to steep every nerve and fibre of the frame with repose and 
pleasure. Now and then in America I have felt a June morning 
that approached it, but never the degree, the fulness, the sunny 
softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquilizes the mind as well 
as the body. You cannot resist feeling contented and genial. 
We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought down 



NEW ARRIVALS. 201 

their mattresses, and are lying along the shade of the east wall, 
talking quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen 
on the quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard lies asleep in 
his boat, the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff, 
everything about us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I 
would not stir willingly to-day. 



We have had two new arrivals this morning— a boat from 
Antibes, with a company of players bound for the theatre at 
Milan ; and two French deserters from the regiment at Toulon, 
who escaped in a leaky boat, and have made this voyage along 
the coast to get into Italy. They knew nothing of the quaran- 
tine, and were very much surprised at their arrest. They will, 
probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The new 
comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we 
have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of 
Sardinia is not spared in their voluble denunciations. 

Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious, We 
lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up 
late, but a lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books 
except dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of 
paper. What I shall do, the two remaining days, I cannot 
divine. Our meals were amusing for a while. We have but 
three knives and four glasses ; and the Belgian, having cut his 
plate in two on the first day, has eaten since from the wash-bowl. 
The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a shell ; and the 
meats, to be kept warm during their passage by water, are 

brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Our 
9* 



202 COMPANIONS, 



tablecloth appeared to-day of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat 
down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with 
youth and good spirits, we manage to be more contented than 
one would expect ; and our lively discussions of the spot on the 
quay where the table shall be laid, and the noise of our dinners en 
'plein air, would convince the spectator that we were a very merry 
and sufficiently happy company. 

I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon 
has been in Canada and the west of New York, and we have 
travelled the same routes, and made in several instances, the 
same acquaintances. He has been in almost every part of the 
world also, and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible. 
The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, the Sicilians of the 
G-erman universities ; and when I have exhausted all they can tell 
me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met all last 
winter without noticing them, at the parties; and we discuss the 
belles, and the different members of the beau monde, with all the 
touching air and tone of exiles from paradise. In a case of 
desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea wall 
is a delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch 
to the indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen 
such a beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly rich and 
clear, like an intensely blue sky, heaving into waves. I do not 
find the often-repeated description of its loveliness exaggerated. 

Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat 
our last dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary 
table is already laid upon the quay, and two strips of board raised 
upon some ingenious contrivance, I can not well say what, and 
covered with all the private and public napkins that retained any 
portion of their maiden whiteness. Our knives are reduced to 



END OF QUARANTINE. 203 



two, one having disappeared unaccountably ; but the defi- 
ciency is partially remedied. The surgeon has " whittled" a 
pine knot, which floated in upon the tide, into a distant imitation ; 
and one of the company has produced a delicate dagger, that 
looks very like a keepsake from a lady ; and, by the reluctant 
manner in which it was put to service, the profanation cost his 
sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across 
a plate, abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment. 
There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that 
contained the salt. It was too necessary to be made an " aside," 
and lies plump in the middle of the table. I fear there has been 
more fun in the preparation than we shall feel in eating the 
dinner when it arrives. The Belgian stands on the wall, 
watching all the boats from town ; but they pass off down the 
harbor, one after another, and we are destined to keep our 
appetites to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs the 
" sauce of hunger." 

The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat 
must be in sight. As we get off at six o'clock to-morrow 
morning, my portfolio shuts till I find another resting place, 
probably Genoa. 



LETTER XXVI. 

SHORE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN NICE FUNERAL SERVICES OF 

MARIA THERESA, ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA PRINCIPALITY OF 

MONACO ROAD TO GENOA SARDINIA PRISON OF THE POPE 

HOUSE OF COLUMBUS GENOA. 

The health-magistrate arrived at an early hour, on the morning 
of our departure from the lazaretto of Villa Franca. He was 
accompanied by a physician, who was to direct the fumigation. 
The iron pot was placed in the centre of the chamber, our clothes 
were spread out upon the beds, and the windows shut. The 
chlorin soon filled the room, and its detestable odor became so 
intolerable that we forced the door, and rushed past the sentinel 
into the open air, nearly suffocated. This farce over, we were 
permitted to embark, and, rounding the point, put into Nice. 

The Mediterranean curves gracefully into the crescented shore 
of this lovely bay, and the high hills lean away from the skirts of 
the town in one unbroken slope of cultivation to the top. Large, 
handsome buildings face you on the long quay, as you approach ; 
and white chimneys, and half-concealed parts of country-houses 
and suburban villas, appear through the olive and orange trees 



NICE. 205 

with which the whole amphitheatre is covered. We landed amid 
a crowd of half-naked idlers, and were soon at a hotel, where we 
ordered the best breakfast the town would afford, and sat down 
once more to clean cloths and unrepulsive food. 

As we rose from the table, a note, edged with black, and 
scaled and enveloped with considerable circumstance, was put 
into my hand by the master of the hotel. It was an invitation 
from the governor to attend a funeral service, to be performed in 
the cathedral that day, at ten o'clock, for the " late Queen- 
mother, Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria." Wondering 
not a little how I came by the honor, I joined the crowd nocking 
from all parts of the town to see the ceremony. The central 
door was guarded by a file of Sardinian soldiers ; and, presenting 
my invitation to the officer on duty, I was handed over to the 
master of ceremonies, and shown to an excellent seat in the 
centre of the church. The windows were darkened, and the 
candles of the altar not yet lit ; and, by the indistinct light that 
came in through the door, I could distinguish nothing clearly. 
A little silver bell tinkled presently from one of the side-chapels, 
and boys dressed in white appeared, with long tapers, and the 
house was soon splendidly illuminated. I found myself in the 
midst of a crowd of four or five hundred ladies, all in deep 
mourning. The church was hung from the floor to the roof in 
black cloth, ornamented gorgeously with silver ; and, under the 
large dome, which occupied half the ceiling, was raised a 
pyramidal altar, with tripods supporting chalices for incense at 
the four corners, a walk round the lower base for the priests, and 
something in the centre, surrounded with a blaze of light, 
representing figures weeping over a tomb. The organ com- 
menced pealing, there was a single beat on the drum, and a 



206 FUNERAL OF AN ARCH-DUCHESS. 



procession entered. It was composed of the nobility of Nice, 
and the military and civil officers, all in uniform and court 
dresses. The gold and silver flashing in the light, the tall 
plumes of the Sardinian 3o!diery below, the solemn music, and 
the moving of the censers from the four corners of the altar, 
proauced a very impressive effect. As soon as the procession 
had quite entered, the fire was kindled in the four chalices ; and, 
as the white smoke rolled up to the roof, an anthem commenced 
with the full power of the organ. The singing was admirable, 
and there was one female voice in the choir, of singular power 
and sweetness. 9 

The remainder of the service was the usual ceremonies of the 
Cathofic church, and I amused myself with observing the people 
about me. It was little like a scene of mourning. The officers 
gradually edged in between the seats, and every woman with the 
least pretension to prettiness was engaged in anything but her 
prayers for the soul of the late Archduchess. Some of these, the 
very young girls, were pretty ; and the women, of thirty-five or 
forty apparently, were fine-looking ; but, except a decided air of 
style and rank, the fairly grown-up belles seemed to me of very 
small attraction. 

I saw little else in Nice to interest me. I wandered about 
with my friend the surgeon, laughing at the ridiculous figures and 
villainous uniforms of the Sardinian infantry, and repelling the 
beggars, who radiated to us from every corner; and, having 
traversed the terrace of a mile on the tops of the houses next the 
Fea, unravelled all the lanes of the old town, and admired all the 
splendor of the new, we dined and got early to bed, anxious to 
sleep once more between sheets, and prepare for an early start on 
the following morning. 



NICE TO GENOA. 207 



We were on the road to G-enoa with the first gray of the dawn 
— the surgeon, a French officer, and myself, three passengers of 
a courier barouche. We were climbing up mountains and sliding 
down with locked wheels for several hours, by a road edging on 
precipices, and overhung by tremendous rocks, and, descending at 
last to the sea-level, we entered Mentore, a town of the little 
principality of Monaco. Having paid our twenty sous tribute to 
this prince of a territory not larger than a Kentucky farm, we 
were suffered to cross his borders once more into Sardinia, having 
posted through a whole State in less than half an hour. 

It is impossible to conceive a route of more grandeur than the 
famous road along the Mediterranean from Nice to Genoa. It is 
near a hundred and fifty miles, over the edges of mountains 
bordering the sea for the whole distance. The road is cut into 
the sides of the precipice, often hundreds of feet perpendicular 
above the surf, descending sometimes into the ravines formed by 
the numerous rivers that cut their way to the sea, and mounting 
immediately again to the loftiest summits. It is a dizzy business, 
from beginning to end. There is no parapet, usually, and there 
are thousands of places where half a " shie" by a timid horse, 
would drop you at once some hundred fathoms upon rocks wet by 
the spray of every sea that breaks upon the shore. The loveliest 
little nests of valleys lie between that can be conceived. You 
will see a green spot, miles below you in turning the face of a 
rock ; and right in the midst, like a handful of plaster models on 
a carpet, a cluster of houses, lying quietly in the warm southern 
exposure, embosomed in everything refreshing to the eye, the 
mountain sides cultivated in a large circle around, and the ruins 
of an old castle to a certainty on the eminence above. You 
descend and descend, and wind into the curves of the shore, 



208 VIEWS. 



losing and regaining sight of it constantly, till, entering a gate on 
the sea-level, you find yourself in a filthy, narrow, half-white- 
washed town, with a population of beggars, priests, and soldiers ; 
not a respectable citizen to be seen from one end to the other, 
nor, a clean woman, nor a decent house. It is so, all through 
Sardinia. The towns from a distance lie in the most exquisitely- 
chosen spots possible. A river comes down from the hills and 
washes the wall ; the uplands above are always of the very 
choicest shelter and exposure. You would think man and 
nature had conspired to complete its convenience and beauty ; 
yet, within, all is misery, dirt, and superstition. Every corner 
has a cross — every bench a priest, idling in the sun — every door 
a picture of the Virgin. You are delighted to emerge once 
more, and get up a mountain to the fresh air. 

As we got farther on toward Genoa, the valleys became longer 
by the sea, and the road ran through gardens, down to the very 
beach, of great richness and beauty. It was new to me to travel 
for hours among groves of orange and lemon trees, laden with 
both fruit and flower, the ground beneath covered with the 
windfalls, like an American apple-orchard. I never saw such a 
profusion of fruit. The trees were breaking under the rich 
yellow clusters. Among other things, there were hundreds of 
tall palms, spreading out their broad fans in the sun, apparently 
perfectly strong and at home under this warm sky. They are 
cultivated as ornaments for the churches on sacred days. 

I caught some half dozen views on the way that I shall never 
get out of my memory. At one place particularly, I think near 
Fenale, we ran round the corner of a precipice by a road cut 
right into the face of a rock, two hundred feet at least above the 
sea; and a long view burst upon us at once of a sweet green 



ENTRANCE TO GENOA. 209 



valley, stretching back into the mountains as far as the eye could 
go, with three or four small towns, with their white churches, just 
checkering the broad sweeps of verdure, a rapid river winding 
through its bosom, and a back ground of the Piedmontese Alps, 
with clouds half-way up their sides, and snow glittering in the sun 
on their summits. Language cannot describe these scenes. It is 
but a repetition of epithets to attempt it. You must come and 
see them to feel how much one loses to live always at home, and 
read of such things only. 

The courier pointed out to us the place in which Napoleon 
imprisoned the Pope of Rome — a low house, surrounded with a 
wall close upon the sea — and the house a few miles from Genoa, 
believed to have been that of Columbus. 



We entered Genoa an hour after sunrise, by a noble gate, 
placed at the western extremity of the crescented harbor. 
Thence to the centre of the city was one continued succession 
of sumptuous palaces. We drove rapidly along the smooth, 
beautifully paved streets, and my astonishment was unbroken 
till we were set down at the hotel. Congratulating ourselves on 
the hindrances which had conspired to bring us here against our 
will, we took coffee, and went to bed for a few hours, fatigued 
with a journey more wearisome to the body than the mind. 



I have spent two days in merely wandering about Genoa, 
looking at the exterior of the city. It is a group of hills, piled 



210 GENOA. 



with princely palaces. I scarce know how to commence a 
description of it. If there were but one of these splendid 
edifices, or if I could isolate a single palace, and describe it to 
you minutely, it would be easy to convey an impression of the 
surprise and pleasure of a stranger in Genoa. The whole city, to 
use the expression of a French guide-book, " respire la magni- 
ficence'''' — breathes of splendor ! The grand street, in which 
most of the palaces stand, winds around the foot of a high hill ; 
and the gardens and terraces are piled back, with palaces above 
them ; and gardens, and terraces, and palaces still above these ; 
forming, wherever you can catch a vista, the most exquisite rising 
perspective. On the summit of this hill stands the noble fortress 
of St. George ; and behind it a lovely open garden, just now alivo 
with millions of roses, a fountain playing into' a deep oval basin in 
the centre, and a view beneath and beyond of a broad winding 
valley, covered with the country villas of the nobility and gentry, 
and blooming with all the luxuriant vegetation of a southern 
clime. 

My window looks out upon the bay, across which I see the 
palace of Andria Doria, the great winner of the best glory of the 
Genoese ; and just under me floats an American flag, at # the peak 
of a Baltimore schooner, that sails to-morrow morning for the 
United States. I must close my letter, to send by her. I .shall 
remain in Genoa a week, and will write you of its splendor more 
minutely. 



LETTER XXVII. 

FLORENCE THE GALLERY — THE VENUS DE MEDICIS THE TRI- 
BUNE— ^THE FORNARINA THE CASCINE AN ITALIAN TESTA 

MADAME CATALANI. 

Florence. — It is among the pleasantest things in this very- 
pleasant world, to find oneself for the first time in a famous city. 
We sallied from the hotel this morning an hour after our arrival, 
and stopped at the first corner to debate where we should go. I 
could not help smiling at the magnificence of the alternatives. 
" To the Gallery, of course," said I, " to see the Yenus de Medi- 
cis." " To Santa Croce," said one, "to see the tombs of Michael 
Angelo, and Alfieri, and Machiavelli." " To the Palazzo Pitti," 
said another, " the Grand Duke's palace, and the choicest collec- 
tion of pictures in the world." The embarrassment alone was 
quite a sensation. 

The Venus carried the day. We crossed the Piazza de 
Granduca, and inquired for the gallery. A fine court was shown 
us, opening out from the square, around the three sides of which 
stood a fine uniform structure, with a colonnade, the lower story- 
occupied by shops and crowded with people. We mounted a 



212 THE VENUS. 



broad staircase, and requested of the soldier at the door to be 
directed to the presence of the Venus, without delay. Passing 
through one of the long wings of the gallery i without even a 
glance at the statues, pictures, and bronzes that lined the walls, 
we arrived at the door of a cabinet, and, putting aside the large 
crimson curtain at the entrance, stood before the enchantress. I 
must defer a description of her. We spent an hour there, but, 
except that her divine beauty filled and satisfied my eye, as 
nothing else ever did, and that the statue is as unlike a thing to 
the casts one sees of it as one thing could well be unlike another, 
I made no criticism. There is an atmosphere of fame and 
circumstantial interest about the Yenus, which bewilders the 
fancy almost as much as her loveliness does the eye. She has 
been gazed upon and admired by troops of pilgrims, each of 
whom it were worth half a life to have met at her pedestal. The 
painters, the poets, the talent and beauty, that have come there 
from every country under the sun, and the single feeling of love 
and admiration that she has breathed alike into all, consecrate 
her mere presence as a place for revery and speculation. Childe 
Harold has been here, I thought, and Shelley and Wordsworth 
and Moore ; and, farther removed from our sympathies, but 
interesting still, the poets and sculptors of another age, Michael 
Angelo and Alfieri, the men of genius of all nations and times ; 
and, to stand in the same spot, and experience the same feeling 
with them, is an imaginative pleasure, it is true, but as truly a 
deep and real one. Exceeding, as the Venus does beyond all 
competition, every image of loveliness painted or sculptured that 
one has ever before seen, the fancy leaves the eye gazing upon it, 
and busies itself irresistibly with its pregnant atmosphere of 
recollections. At least I found it so, and I must go there again 



THE FORNARINA. 213 



and again, before I can look at the marble separately, and with a 
merely admiring attention. 



Three or four days have stolen away, I scarce know how. I 
have seen but one or two things, yet have felt so unequal to the 
description, that but for my promise I should never write a line 
about them. Really, to sit down and gaze into one of Titian's 
faces for an hour, and then to go away and dream of putting into 
language its color and expression, seems to me little short of 
superlative madness. I only wonder at the divine faculty of 
sight. The draught of pleasure seems to me immortal, and the 
eye the only Ganymede that can carry the cup steadily to the 
mind. How shall I begin to give you an idea of the For- 
narina ? What can I tell you of the St. John in the de- 
sert, that can afford you a glimpse, even, of Raphael's inspired 
creations ? 

The Tribune is the name of a small octagonal cabinet in the 
gallery, devoted to the masterpieces of the collection. There are 
five statues, of which one is the Venus de Medicis ; and a dozen 
or twenty pictures, of which I have only seen as yet Titian's two 
Venuses, and Raphael's St. John and Fornarina. People walk 
through the other parts of the gallery, and pause here and there 
a moment before a painting or a statue ; but in the Tribune they 
sit down, and you may wait hours before a chair is vacated, or 
often before the occupant shows a sign of life. Everybody seems 
entranced there. They get before a picture, and bury their eyes 
in it, as if it had turned them to stone. After the Venus, the 
Fornarina strikes me most forcibly, and I have stood and gazed 



214 A COQUETTE AXD THE ARTS. 



at it till my limbs were numb with the motionless posture. 
There Is no affectation in this. I saw an English girl yesterday 
gazing at the St. John. She was a nighty, coquettish-looking 
creature, and I had felt that the spirit of the place was profaned 
by the way she sailed into the room. She sat down, with half a 
glance at the Yenus, and began to look at this picture. It is a 
glorious thing, to be sure, a youth of apparently seventeen, with 
a leopard-skin about his loins, in the very pride of maturing man- 
liness and beauty. The expression of the face is all human, but 
wrought to the very limit of celestial enthusiasm. The wonder- 
ful richness of the coloring, the exquisite ripe fulness of the limbs, 
the passionate devotion of the kindling features, combine to make 
it the faultless ideal of a perfect human being in youth. I had 
quite forgotten the intruder, for an hour. Quite a different pic- 
ture had absorbed all my attention. The entrance of some one 
disturbed me, and as I looked around I caught a glance of my 
coquette, sitting with her hands awkwardly clasped over her guide- 
book, her mouth open, and the lower jaw hanging down with a 
ludicrous expression of unconsciousness and astonished admiration. 
She was evidently unaware of everything in the world except the 
form before her, and a more absorbed and sincere wonder I 
never witnessed. 

1 have been enjoying all day an Italian Festa. The Floren- 
tines have a pleasant custom of celebrating this particular festival, 
Ascension-day, in the open air ; breakfasting, dining, and dancing 
under the superb trees of the Cascine. This is, by the way, 
quite the loveliest public pleasure-ground I ever saw — a wood of 
three miles in circumference, lying on the banks of the Arno, 
just below the town ; not, like most European promenades, a 
bare field of clay or ground, set out with stunted trees, and cut 



A. FESTA. 215 



into rectangular walks, or without a secluded spot or an 
untrodden blade of grass ; but full of sward-paths, green and 
embowered, the underbrush growing wild and luxuriant between ; 
ivy and vines of all descriptions hanging from the limbs, and 
winding about every trunk ; and here and there a splendid 
opening of velvet grass for half a mile, with an ornamental 
temple in the centre, and beautiful contrivances of perspective 
in every direction. I have been not a little surprised with the 
enchantment of so public a place You step into the woods 
from the very pavement of one of the most populous streets in 
Florence ; from dust and noise and a crowd of busy people to 
scenes where Boccacio might have fitly laid his " hundred tales 
of love." The river skirts the Cascine on one side, and the 
extensive grounds of a young Russian nobleman's villa on the 
other ; and here at sunset come all the world to walk and 
drive, and on festas like this, to encamp, and keep holy- 
day under the trees. The whole place is more like a half- 
redeemed wild-wood in America, than a public promenade in 
Europe. 

It is the custom, I am told, for the Grand Duke and the nobles 
of Tuscany to join in this festival, and breakfast in the open air 
with the people. The late death of the young and beautiful 
Grand-Duchess has prevented it this year, and the merry-makings 
are diminished of one half their interest. I should not have 
imagined it, however, without the information. I took a long 
stroll among the tents this morning, with two ladies from Albany, 
old friends, whom I have encountered accidentally in Florence. 
The scenes were peculiar and perfectly Italian. Everything was 
done fantastically and tastefully. The tables were set about the 
knolls, the bonnets and shawls hung upon the trees, and the 



216 ASCENSION DAY. 



dark-eyed men and girls, with their expressive faces full of 
enjoyment, leaned around upon the grass, with the children 
playing among them, in innumerable little parties, dispersed as if 
it had been managed by a painter. At every few steps a long 
embowered alley stretched off to the right or left, with strolling 
groups scattered as far as the eye could see under the trees, the 
red ribands and bright colored costumefe contrasting gayly with 
the foliage of every tint, from the dusky leaf of the olive to the 
bright soft green of the acacia. Wherever there was a circular 
opening there were tents just in the edges of the wood, the white 
festoons of the cloth hung from the limbs, and tables spread 
under them, with their antique-looking Tuscan pitchers wreathed 
with vines, and tables spread with broad green leaves, making the 
prettiest cool covering that could be conceived. I have not 
come up to the reality in this description, and yet, on reading 
it, it sounds half a fiction. One must be here to feel how 
little language can convey an idea of this " garden of the 
world." 

The evening was the fashionable hour, and, with the addition 
of Mr. Greenough, the sculptor, to our party, we drove to the 
Cascine about an hour before sunset to see the equipages, and 
enjoy the close of the festival. The drives intersect these 
beautiful grounds irregularly in every direction, and the spectacle 
was even more brilliant than in the morning. The nobility and 
the gay world of Florence flew past us, in their showy carriages 
of every description, the distinguished occupants differing in but 
one respect from well-bred people of other countries — they looked 
Ziappy. If I had been lying on the grass, an Italian peasant, 
with my kinsmen and friends, I should not have felt that among 
the hundreds who were rolling past me, richer and better born, 



THE CASCINE. 2 17 



there was one face that looked on me contemptuously or conde- 
scendingly. I was very much struck with the universal air of 
enjoyment and natural exhilaration. One scarce felt like a 
stranger in such a happy-looking crowd. 

Near the centre of the grounds is an open space, where it is 
the custom for people to stop in driving to exchange courtesies 
with their friends. It is a kind of fashionable open air soiree. 
Every evening you may see from fifty to a hundred carriages at a 
time, moving about in this little square in the midst of the 
woods, and drawing up side by side, one after another, for 
conversation. Gentlemen come ordinarily on horseback, and 
pass round from carriage to carriage, with their hats off, talking 
gayly with the ladies within. There could not be a more 
brilliant scene, and there never was a more delightful custom. 
It keeps alive the intercourse in the summer months, when there 
are no parties, and it gives a stranger an opportunity of seeing 
the lovely and the distinguished without the difficulty and 
restraint of an introduction to society. I wish some of these 
better habits of Europe were imitated in our country as readily 
as worse ones. 

After threading the embowered roads of the Cascine for an 
hour, and gazing with constant delight at the thousand pictures 
of beauty and happiness that met us at every turn, we came 
back and mingled in the gay throng of carriages at the centre. 
The valet of our lady-friends knew everybody, and, taking a 
convenient stand, we amused ourselves for an hour, gazing at 
them as they were named in passing. Among others, several of 
the Bonaparte family went by in a splendid barouche ; and a 
heavy carriage, with a showy, tassclled hammer-cloth, and 
servants in flashy liveries, stopped just at our side, containing 
10 



218 MADAME CATALANI. 



Madame Catalani, the celebrated singer. She has a fine face 
yet, with large expressive features, and dark, handsome eyes. 
Her daughter was with her, but she has none of her mother's 
pretensions to good looks. 



LETTER XXVIII. 

THE PITTI PALACE— TITIAN'S BELLA— AN IMPROVISATRICE— 
VIEW FROM A WINDOW— ANNUAL EXPENSE OF RESIDENCE AT 
FLORENCE. 

I have got into the « back-stairs interest," as the politicians 
say, and to-day I wound up the staircase of the Pitti Palace, and 
spent an hour or two in its glorious halls with the younger 
Greenough, without the insufferable and usually inevitable annoy- 
ance of a cicerone. You will not of course, expect a regular 
description of such a vast labyrinth of splendor. I could not 
give it to you even if I had been there the hundred times that I 
intend to go, if I live long enough in Florence. In other 
galleries you see merely the Arts, here you are dazzled with the 
renewed and costly magnificence of a royal palace. The floors 
and ceilings and furniture, each particular part of which it must 
have cost the education of a life to accomplish, bewilder you out 
of yourself, quite ; and, till you can tread on a matchless pave- 
ment or imitated mosaic, and lay your hat on a table of inlaid 
gems, and sit on a sofa wrought with you know not what delicate 



220 TITIAN'S BELLA. 



and curious workmanship, without nervousness or compunction, 
you are not in a state to appreciate the pictures upon the walls 
with judgment or pleasure. 

I saw but one thing well — Titian's Bella, as the Florentines 
call it. There are two famous Venuses by the same master, as 
you know, in the other gallery, hanging over the Venus de 
Medicis — full-length figures reclining upon couches, one of them 
usually called Titian's mistress. The Bella in the Pitti gallery, 
is a half-length portrait, dressed to the shoulders, and a dhTerent 
kind of picture altogether. The others are voluptuous, full- 
grown women. This represents a young girl of perhaps seven- 
teen ; and if the frame in which it hangs were a window, and the 
loveliest creature that ever trod the floors of a palace stood 
looking out upon you, in the open air, she could not seem more 
real, or give you a stronger feeling of the presence of exquisite, 
breathing, human beauty. The face has no particular character. 
It is the look with which a girl would walk to the casement in a 
mood of listless happiness, and gaze out, she scarce knew why. 
You feel that it is the habitual expression. Yet, with all its 
subdued quiet and sweetness, it fa a countenance beneath which 
evidently sleeps warm and measureless passion, capacities for 
loving and enduring and resenting everything that makes up a 
character to revere and adore. I do not know how a picture can 
express so much — but it does express all this, and eloquently 
too. 

In a fresco on the ceiling of one of the private chambers, is a 
portrait of the late lamented Grand-duchess. On the mantelpiece 
in the Duke's cabinet also is a beautiful marble bust of her. It 
is a face and head corresponding perfectly to the character given 
her by common report, full of nobleness and kindness. The 



THE GRAND-DUCHESS. 221 



Duke, who loved her with a devotion rarely found in marriages of 
state, is inconsolable since her death, and has shut himself from 
all society. He hardly slept during her illness, watching by her 
bedside constantly. She was a religious enthusiast, and her 
health is said to have been first impaired by too rigid an adhe- 
rence to the fasts of the church, and self-inflicted penance. The 
Florentines talk of her still, and she appears to have been un- 
usually loved and honored. 



I have just returned from hearing an improvisatrice. At a 
party last night I met an Italian gentleman, who talked very 
enthusiastically of a lady of Florence, celebrated for her talent 
of improvisation. She was to give a private exhibition to her 
friends the next day at twelve, and he offered politely to intro- 
duce me. He called this morning, and we went together. 

Some thirty or forty people were assembled in a handsome 
room, darkened tastefully by heavy curtains. They were sitting 
in perfect silence when we entered, all gazing intently on the im- 
provisatrice, a lady of some forty or fifty years, of a fine counte- 
nance, and dressed in deep mourning. She rose to receive us ; 
and my friend introducing me, to my infinite dismay, as an im- 
provisators Americano, she gave me a seat on the sofa at her 
right hand, an honor I had not Italian enough to decline. I 
regretted it the less that it gave me an opportunity of observing 
the effects of the " fine phrensy," a pleasure I should otherwise 
certainly have lost through the darkness of the room. 

We were sitting in profound silence, the head of the improvi- 
satrice bent down upon her breast, and her hands clasped over 



222 AN IMPROVISATRICE. 



her lap, when she suddenly raised herself, and with both hands 
extended, commenced in a thrilling voice, " P 'atria /" Some 
particular passage of Florentine history had been given her by 
one of the company, and we had interrupted her in the midst of 
her conception. She went on with astonishing fluency, in 
smooth harmonious rhyme, without the hesitation of a breath, for 
half an hour. My knowledge of the language was too imperfect 
to judge of the finish of the style, but the Italians present were 
quite carried away with their enthusiasm. There was an im- 
provisatore in company, said to be the second in Italy ; a young 
man, of perhaps twenty-five, with a face that struck me as the 
very beau ideal of genius. His large expressive eyes kindled as 
the poetess went on, and the changes of his countenance soon 
attracted the attention of the company. She closed and sunk 
back upon her seat, quite exhausted ; and the poet, looking 
round for sympathy, loaded her with praises in the peculiarly 
beautiful epithets of the Italian language. I regarded her more 
closely as she sat by me. Her profile was beautiful ; and her 
mouth, which at the first glance had exhibited marks of age, was 
curled by her excitement into a firm, animated curve, which 
restored twenty years at least by its expression. 

After a few minutes one of the company went out of the room, 
and wrote upon a sheet of paper the last words of every line 
for a sonnet ; and a gentleman who had remained within, gave a 
subject to fill it up. She took the paper, and looking at it a mo- 
ment or two, repeated the sonnet as fluently as if it had been 
written out before her. Several other subjects were then given 
her, and she filled the same sonnet with the same terminations. 
It was wonderful. I could not conceive of such facility. After 
she had satisfied them with this, she turned to me and said, that 



LIVING IN FLORENCE. 223 



in compliment to the American improvisatore she would give an 
ode upon America. To disclaim the character and the honor 
would have been both difficult and embarrassing even for one 
who knew the language better than I, so I bowed and submitted. 
She began with the discovery of Columbus, claimed him as her 
countryman ; and with some poetical fancies about the wild 
woods and the Indians, mingled up Montezuma and Washington 
rather promiscuously, and closed with a really beautiful apos- 
trophe to liberty. My acknowledgments were fortunately lost 
in the general murmur. 

A tragedy succeeded, in which she sustained four characters. 
This, by the working of her forehead and the agitation of her 
breast, gave her more trouble, but her fluency was unimpeded ; 
and when she closed, the company was in raptures. Her ges- 
tures were more passionate in this performance, but, even with 
my imperfect knowledge of the language, they always seemed 
called for and in taste. Her friends rose as she sunk back on 
the sofa, gathered round her, and took her hands, overwhelming 
her with praises. It was a very exciting scene altogether, and I 
went away with new ideas of poetical power and enthusiasm. 



One lodges like a prince in Florence, and pays like a beggar. 
For the information of artists and scholars desirous to come 
abroad, to whom exact knowledge on the subject is important, I 
will give you the inventory and cost of my whereabout. 

I sit at this moment in a window of what was formerly the 
archbishop's palace — a noble old edifice, with vast staircases and 
resounding arches, and a hall in which you might put a dozen of 



224 LODGINGS AT FLORENCE. 



the modern brick houses of our country. My chamber is as 
large as a ball-room, on the second story, looking out upon the 
garden belonging to the house, which extends to the eastern wall 
of the city. Beyond this lies one of the sweetest views in the 
world — the ascending amphitheatre of hills, in whose lap lies 
Florence, with the tall eminence of Fiesole in the centre, crowned 
with the monastery in which Milton passed six weeks, while 
gathering scenery for his Paradise. I can almost count the 
panes of glass in the windows of the bard's room ; and, between 
the fine old building and my eye, on the slope of the hill, lie 
thirty or forty splendid villas, half-buried in trees (Madame 
Catalani's among them), piled one above another on the steep 
ascent, with their columns and porticoes, as if they were mock 
temples in a vast terraced garden. I do not think there is 
a window in Italy that commands more points of beauty. Cole, 
the American landscape painter, who occupied the room before 
me, took a sketch from it. For neighbors, the Neapolitan am- 
bassador lives on the same floor, the two Greenoughs in the 
ground-rooms below, and the palace of one of the wealthiest 
nobles of Florence overlooks the garden, with a front of eighty- 
five windows, from which you are at liberty to select any two or 
three, and imagine the most celebrated beauty of Tuscany be- 
hind the crimson curtains — the daughter of this same noble bear- 
ing that reputation. She was pointed out to me at the Opera a 
night or two since, and I have seen as famous women with less 
pretensions. 

For the interior, my furniture is not quite upon the same 
scale, but I have a clean snow-white bed, a calico-covered sofa, 
chairs and tables enough, and pictures three deep from the wall 
to the floor. 



EXPENSE OF LIVING. 2 25 



For all this, and the liberty of the episcopal garden, I pay 
three dollars a month! A dollar more is charged for lamps, 
boots, and service, and a dark-eyed landlady of thirty-five 
mends my gloves, and pays me two visits a day — items not men- 
tioned in the bill. Then for the feeding, an excellent breakfast 
of coffee and toast is brought me for six cents ; and, without 
wine, one may dine heartily at a fashionable restaurant for twelve 
cents, and with wine, quite magnificently for twenty-five. Ex- 
clusive of postage and pleasures, this is all one is called upon to 
spend in Florence. Three hundred dollars a year would fairly 
and largely cover the expenses of a man living at this rate ; and 
a man who would not be willing to live half as well for the sake 
of his art, does not deserve to see Italy. I have stated these 
unsentimental particulars, because it is a kind of information I 
believe much wanted. I should have come to Italy years ago if 
I had known as much, and I am sure there are young men in our 
country, dreaming of this paradise of art in half despair, who will 
thank me for it, and take up at once " the pilgrim's sandal-shoon 
and scollop-shell." 

10* 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

EXCURSION TO VENICE AMERICAN ARTISTS VALLEY OF FLO- 
RENCE MOUNTAINS OF CARRARA TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 

HIGHLAND TAVERN MIST AND SUNSHINE ITALIAN VAL- 
LEYS VIEW OF THE ADRIATIC BORDER OF ROMAGNA SUB- 
JECTS FOR THE PENCIL HIGHLAND ITALIANS ROMANTIC 

SCENERY A PAINFUL OCCURRENCE AN ITALIAN HUSBAND 

A DUTCHMAN, HIS WIFE, AND CHILDREN BOLOGNE THE 

PILGRIM MODEL FOR A MAGDALEN. 

I started for Venice yesterday, in company with Mr. Alex- 
ander and Mr. Cranch, two American artists. We had taken the 
vetturino for Bologna, and at daylight we were winding up the 
side of the amphitheatre of Appenines that bends over Florence, 
leaving Fiesole rising sharply on our right. The mist was creep- 
ing up the mountain just in advance of us, retreating with a 
scarcely perceptible motion to the summits, like the lift of a 
heavy curtain ; Florence, and its long, heavenly valley, full of 
white palaces sparkling in the sun, lay below us, more like a 
vision of a better world than a scene of human passion ; away in 
the horizon the abrupt heads of the mountains of Carrara rose 



COMPANIONS. 227 



into the sky ; and with the cool, fresh breeze of the hills, and the 
excitement of the pleasant excursion before us, we were three of 
as happy travellers probably as were to be met on any highway 
in this garden of the world. 

We had six companions, and a motley crew they were — a little 
effeminate Venetian, probably a tailor, with a large, noble-looking, 
handsome contadina for a wife ; a sputtering Dutch, merchant, a 
fine, little, coarse, good-natured fellow, with his wife, and two 
very small and very disagreeable children ; an Austrian corporal 
in full uniform ; and a fellow in a straw hat, speaking some 
unknown language, and a nondescript in every respect. The 
women and children, and my friends, the artists, were my 
companions inside, the double dicky in front accommodating the 
others. Conversation commenced with the journey. The Dutch 
spoke their dissonant language to each other, and French to us, 
the contadina's soft Venetian dialect broke in like a flute in a 
chorus of harsh instruments, and our own hissing English added 
to a mixture already sufficiently various. 

We were all day ascending mountains, and slept coolly under 
three or four blankets at a highland tavern, on a very wild 
Appenine. Our supper was gaily eaten, and our mirth served 
to entertain five or six English families, whose chambers were 
only separated from the rough raftered dining hall by double 
curtains. It was pleasant to hear the children and nurses 
speaking English unseen. The contrast made us realize forcibly 
the eminently foreign scene about us. The next morning, after 
travelling two or three hours in a thick, drizzling mist, we 
descended a sharp hill, and emerged at its foot into a sunshine so 
sudden and clear, that it seemed almost as if the night had burst 
into mid-day in a moment. We had come out of a black cloud. 



228 SCENERY OF ROMAGNA. 

The mountain behind us was capped with it to the summit. 
Beneath us lay a map of a hundred valleys, all bathed and 
glowing in unclouded light, and on the limit of the horizon, far 
off as the eye could span, lay a long sparkling line of water, like 
a silver frame around the landscape. It was our first view ot the 
Adriatic. We looked at it with the singular and indefinable 
emotion with which one always sees a celebrated water for the 
first time — a sensation, it seems to me, which is like that of no 
other addition to our knowledge. The Mediterranean at Mar- 
seilles, the Arno at Florence, the Seine at Paris, affected me in 
the same way. Explain it who will, or can ! 

An hour after, we reached the border of Romagna, the 
dominions of the Pope running up thus far into the Appenines. 
Here our trunks were taken off and searched more minutely. 
The little village was full of the dark-skinned, rornantic-lookino; 
Romagnese, and my two friends, seated on a wall, with a dozen 
curious gazers about them, sketched the heads looking from the 
old stone windows, beggars, buildings, and scenery, in a mood of 
professional contentment. Dress apart, these highland Italians 
are like North American Indians — the same copper complexions, 
high cheek bones, thin lips, and dead, black hair. The old 
women particularly, would pass in any of our towns for full- 
blooded squaws. 

The scenery, after this, grew of the kind " which savage Rosa 
dashed" — the only landscape I ever saw exactly of the tints 
so peculiar to Salvator's pictures. Our painters were in ecstasies 
with it, and truly, the dark foliage, and blanched rocks, the wild 
glens, and wind-distorted trees, gave the country the air of a 
home for all the tempests and floods of a continent. The 
Kaatskills are tame to it. 



WIVES. 229 



The forenoon came on, hot and sultry, and our little republic 
began to display its character. The tailor's wife was taken sick ; 
and fatigue, and heat, and the rough motion of the vetturino in 
descending the mountains, brought on a degree of suffering which 
it was painful to witness. She was a woman of really extraordi- 
nary beauty, and dignified and modest as few women are in any 
country. Her suppressed groans, her white, tremulous lips, the 
tears of agony pressing thickly through her shut eyelids, and the 
clenching of her sculpture-like hands, would have moved any- 
thing but an Italian husband. The little effeminate villain 
treated her as if she had been a dog. She bore everything from 
him till he took her hand, which she raised faintly to intimate that 
she could not rise when the carriage stopped, and threw it back 
into her face with a curse. She roused, and looked at him with 
a natural majesty and calmness that made my blood thrill. 
" Aspetta ?" was her only answer, as she sunk back and fainted. 

The Dutchman's wife was a plain, honest, affectionate crea- 
ture, bearing the humors of two heated and ill-tempered children, 
with a patience we were compelled to admire. Her husband 
smoked and laughed, and talked villainous French and worse 
Italian, but was glad to escape to the cabriolet in the hottest of 
the day, leaving his wife to her cares. The baby screamed, and 
the child blubbered and fretted, and for hours the mother was a 
miracle of kindness. The u drop too much," came in the shape 
of a new crying fit from both children, and the poor little Dutch- 
woman, quite wearied out, burst into a flood of tears, and hic- 
cupped her complaints in her own language, weeping unrestrain- 
edly for a quarter of an hour. After this she felt better, took a 
gulp of wine from the black bottle, and settled herself once more 
quietly and resignedly to her duties. We had certainly opened 



230 BOLOGNA. 



one or two very fresh veins of human character, when we stopped 
at the gates. 

There is but one hotel for American travellers in Bologna, of 
course. Those who have read Rogers's Italy, will remember his 
mention of " The Pilgrim, " the house where the poet met Lord 
Byron by appointment, and passed the evening with him which 
he describes so exquisitely. We took leave of our motley friends 
at the door, and our artists who had greatly admired the lovely 
Venetian, parted from her with the regret of old acquaintances. 
She certainly was, as they said, a splendid model for a Magdalen, 
" majestical and sad," and, always in attitudes for a picture : 
sleeping or waking, she afforded a succession of studies of which 
they took the most enthusiastic advantage. 



LETTER XXX. 

EXCURSION TO VENICE CONTINUED BRIEF DESCRIPTION OP BO- 
LOGNA GALLERY OP THE FINE ARTS RAPHAEL'S ST. CECILIA 

PICTURES OF CARRACCI DOMENICHINOS' MADONNA DEL RO- 

SARIO GUIDO'S MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS THE CATHEDRAL 

AND THE DUOMO EFFECTS OF THESE PLACES OF WORSHIP, 

AND THE CEREMONIES, UPON THE MIND RESORT OF THE 

ITALIAN PEASANTRY OPEN CHURCHES SUBTERRANEAN-CON- 
FESSION CHAPEL THE FESTA GRAND PROCESSIONS ILLUMI- 
NATIONS — AUSTRIAN BANDS OF MUSIC DEPORTMENT OF THE 

PEOPLE TO A STRANGER. 

Another evening is here, and my friends have crept to bed 
with the exclamation, " how much we may live in a day." 
Bologna is unlike any other city we have ever seen, in a multi- 
tude of things. You walk all over it under arcades, sheltered on 
either side from the sun, the elegance and ornament .of the lines 
of- pillars depending on the wealth of the owner of the particular 
house, but columns and arches, simple or rich, everywhere. 
Imagine porticoes built on the front of every house in Philadel- 
phia or New York, so as to cover the sidewalks completely, and, 



232 GALLERY AT BOLOGNA. 



down the long perspective of every street, continued lines of airy 
Corinthian, or simple Doric pillars, and you may faintly conceive 
the impression of the streets of Bologna. With Lord Byron's 
desire to forget everything English, I do not wonder at his 
selection of this foreign city for a residence, so emphatically 
unlike, as it is, to everything else in the world. 

"We inquired out the gallery after breakfast, and spent two or 
three hours among the celebrated master-pieces of the Carracci, 
and the famous painters of the Bolognese school. The collection is 
small, but said to be more choice than any other in Italy. There 
certainly are five or six among its forty or fifty gems, that deserve 
each a pilgrimage. The pride of the place is the St. Cecilia, by 
Raphael. This always beautiful personification of music, a 
woman of celestial beauty, stands in the midst of a choir who 
have been interrupted in their anthem by a song, issuing from a 
vision of angels in a cloud from heaven. They have dropped 
their instruments, broken, upon the ground, and are listening 
with rapt attention, all, except the saint, with heads dropped 
upon their bosoms, overcome with the glory of the revelation. 
She alone, with her harp hanging loosely from her fingers, gazes 
up with the most serene and cloudless rapture beaming from her 
countenance, yet with a look of full and angelic comprehension, 
and understanding of the melody and its divine meaning. You 
feel that her beauty is mortal, for it is all woman ; but you see 
that, for the moment, the spirit that breathes through, and 
mingles with, the harmony in the sky, is seraphic and immortal. 
If there ever was inspiration, out of holy writ, it touched the 
pencil of Raphael. 

It is tedious to read descriptions of pictures. I liked every- 
thing in the gallery. The Bolognese style of color suits my eye. 



A GUIDO. 233 

It is rich and forcible, without startling or offending. Its 
delicious mellowness of color, and vigor and triumphant power of 
conception, show two separate triumphs of the art, which in the 
same hand are delightful. The pictures of Ludovico Carracci 
especially fired my admiration. And Domenichino, who died of 
a broken heart at Rome, because his productions were neglected, 
is a painter who always touches me nearly. His Madonna del 
Rosario is crowded with beauty. Such children I never saw in 
painting — the very ideals of infantile grace and innocence. It is 
said of him, that, after painting his admirable frescoes in the 
church of St. Andrew, at Rome, which, at the time, were 
ridiculed unsparingly by the artists, he used to walk in on his 
return from his studio, and gazing at them with a dejected air, 
remark to his friend, that he " could not think they were quite 
so bad — they might have been worse." How true it is, that, 
" the root of a great name is in the dead body." 

Guido's celebrated picture of the " Massacre of the Innocents," 
hangs just opposite the St. Cecilia. It is a powerful and painful 
thing. The marvel of it to me is the simplicity with which its 
wonderful effects are produced, both of expression and color. 
The kneeling mother in the foreground, with her dead children 
before her, is the most intense representation of agony I ever saw. 
Yet the face is calm, her eyes thrown up to heaven, but her lips 
undistorted, and the muscles of her face, steeped as they are in 
suffering, still and natural It is the look of a soul overwhelmed 
— that has ceased to struggle because it is full. Her gaze is on 
heaven, and in the abandonment of her limbs, and the deep, but 
calm agony of her countenance, you see that nothing between 
this and heaven can move her more One suffers in seeing such 



234 CHURCHES. 



pictures. You go away exhausted, and with feelings harassed 
and excited. 

As we returned, we passed the gates of the university. Ou 
the walls were pasted a sonnet printed with some flourish, in 
honor of Camillo Rosalpina, the laureate of one of the academical 
classes. 

"We visited several of the churches in the afternoon. The 
cathedral and the Duomo are glorious places — both. I wish I 
could convey, to minds accustomed to the diminutive size and 
proportions of our churches in America, an idea of the enormous 
and often almost supernatural grandeur of those in Italy. Aisles 
in whose distance the figure of a man is almost lost — pillars, 
whose bases you walk round in wonder, stretching into the lofty 
vaults of the roof, as if they ended in the sky — arches of gigantic 
dimensions, mingling and meeting with the fine tracery of a 
cobweb — altars piled up on every side with gold, and marble, and 
silver — private chapels ornamented with the wealth of nobles, let 
into the sides, each large enough for a communion — and through 
the whole extent of the interior, an unencumbered breadth of 
floor, with here and there a solitary worshipper on his knees, or 
prostrated on his face — figures so small in comparison with the 
immense dome above them, that it seems as if, could distance 
drown a prayer, they were as much lost as if they prayed under 
the open sky ! Without having even a leaning to the Catholic 
faith, I love to haunt their churches, and I am not sure that the 
religious awe of the sublime ceremonies and places of worship 
does not steal upon me daily. Whenever I am heated, or 
fatigued, or out of spirits, I go into the first cathedral, and sit 
down for an hour. They are always dark, and cool, and quiet ; 
and the distant tinkling of the bell from some distant chapel, and 



CONFESSION-CHAPEL. 235 



the grateful odor of the incense, and the low, just audible 
murmur of prayer, settles on my feelings like a mist, and softens 
and soothes and refreshes me, as nothing else will. The Italian 
peasantry who come to the cities to sell or bargain, pass their 
noons in these cool places. You see them on their knees asleep 
against a pillar, or sitting in a corner, with their heads upon their 
bosoms ; and, if it were as a place of retreat and silence alone, the 
churches are an inestimable blessing to them. It seems to me, 
that any sincere Christian, of whatever faith, would find a 
pleasure in going into a sacred place and sitting down in the 
heat of the day, to be quiet and devotional for an hour. It 
would promote the objects of any denomination in our country, I 
should think, if the churches were thus left always open. 

Under the cathedral of Bologna is a subterranean confession- 
chapel — as singular and impressive a device as I ever saw. It is 
dark like a cellar, the daylight faintly struggling through a 
painted window above the altar, and the two solitary wax candles 
giving a most ghastly intensity to the gloom. The floor is paved 
with tombstones, the inscriptions and death's heads of which 
you feel under* your feet as you walk through. The roof is so 
vaulted that every tread is reverberated endlessly in hollow 
tones. All around are the confession-boxes, with the pierced 
plates, at which the priest within puts his ear, worn with the lips 
of penitents, and at one of the sides is a deep cave, far within 
which, as in a tomb, lies a representation on limestone of our 
Saviour, bleeding as he came from the cross, with the apostles, 
made of the same cadaverous material, hanging over him ! 



236 FESTA. 



We have happened, by a fortunate chance, upon an extraordi- 
nary day in Bologna — a festa, that occurs but once in ten years. 
We went out as usual after breakfast this morning, and found the 
city had been decorated over-night in the most splendid and 
singular manner. The arcades of some four or five streets in the 
centre of the town were covered with rich crimson damask, the 
pillars completely bound, and the arches dressed and festooned 
with a degree of gorgeousness and taste as costly as it was 
magnificent. The streets themselves were covered with cloths 
stretched above the second stories of the houses from one side to 
the other, keeping off the sun entirely, and making in each street 
one long tent of a mile or more, with two lines of crimson 
columns at the sides, and festoons of gauze, of different colors, 
hung from window to window in every direction. It was by far 
the most splendid scene I ever saw. The people were all there 
in their gayest dresses, and we probably saw in the course of the 
day every woman in Bologna. My friends, the painters, give it 
the palm for beauty over all the cities they had seen. There was 
a grand procession in the morning, and in the afternoon the 
bands of the Austrian army made the round of the decorated 
streets, playing most delightfully before the principal houses. In 
the evening there was an illumination, and we wandered up and 
down till midnight through the fairy scene, almost literally 
" dazzled and drunk with beauty." 

The people of Bologna have a kind of earnest yet haughty 
courtesy, very different from that of most of the Italians I have 
seen. They bow to the stranger, as he enters the cafe ; and if 
they rise before him, the men raise their hats and the ladies smile 
and curtsy as they go out ; yet without the least familiarity 
which could authorize farther approach to acquaintance. We 



AGREEABLE MANNERS. 237 



have found the officers, whom we meet at the eating-houses, 
particularly courteous. There is something delightful in this 
universal acknowledgment of a stranger's claims on courtesy and 
kindness. I could well wish it substituted in our country, for the 
surly and selfish manners of people in public-houses to each 
other. There is neither loss of dignity nor committal of 
acquaintance in such attentions ; and the manner in which a 
gentleman steps forward to assist you in any difficulty of expla- 
nation in a foreign tongue, or sends the waiter to you if you 
are neglected, or hands you the newspaper or his snuff-box, or 
rises to give you room in a crowded place, takes away, from mo 
at least, all that painful sense of solitude and neglect one feels as 
a stranger in a foreign land. 

We go to Ferrara to-morrow, and thence by the Po to Venice. 
My letter must close for the present. 






LETTER XXXI. 

VENICE THE FESTA GONDOLIERS WOMEN AN ITALIAN SUN- 
SET THE LANDING PRISONS OF THE DUCAL PALACE THE 

CELLS DESCRIBED BY BYRON APARTMENT IN WHICH PRISONERS 

WERE STRANGLED DUNGEONS UNDER THE CANAL SECRET 

GUILLOTINE STATE CRIMINALS BRIDGE OF SIGHS PASSAGE 

TO THE INQUISITION AND TO DEATH CHURCH OF ST. MARC A 

NOBLEMAN IN POVERTY, ETC., ETC. 

You will excuse me at present from a description of Venice. 
It is *a matter not to be hastily undertaken. It has also been 
already done a thousand times ; and I have just seen a beautiful 
sketch of it in the public prints of the United States. I proceed 
with my letters. 

The Venetian festa is a gay affair, as you may imagine. If 
not so beautiful and fanciful as the revels by moonlight, it was 
more satisfactory, for we could see and be seen, those important 
circumstances to one's individual share in the amusement. At 
four o'clock in the afternoon, the links of the long bridge of 
boats across the Griudecca were cut away, and the broad canal 
left clear for a mile up and down. It was covered in a few 



REGATTA. 239 



minutes with gondolas, and all the gayety and fashion of Venice 
fell into the broad promenade between the city and the festal 
island. I should think five hundred were quite within the num- 
ber of gondolas. You can scarcely fancy the novelty and agreea- 
bleness of this singular promenade. It was busy work for the 
eyes to the right and left, with the great proportion of beauty, 
and the rapid glide of their fairy-like boats. And the quietness 
of the thing was so delightful — no crowding, no dust, no noise 
but the dash of oars and the ring of merry voices ; and we sat so 
luxuriously upon our deep cushions the while, threading the busy 
crowd rapidly and silently, without a jar or touch of anything but 
the yielding element that sustained us. 

Two boats soon appeared with wreaths upon their prows, and 
these had won the first and second prizes at the last year's 
regatta. The private gondolas fell away from the middle of the 
canal, and left them free space for a trial of their speed. They 
were the most airy things I ever saw afloat, about forty feet long, 
and as slender and light as they could well be, and hold together. 
Each boat had six oars, and the crews stood with their faces to 
the beak of their craft ; slight, but muscular men, and with a 
skill and quickness at their oars which I had never conceived. I 
realized the truth and the force of Cooper's inimitable descrip- 
tion of the race in the Bravo. The whole of his book gives you 
the very air and spirit of Venice, and one thanks him constantly 
for the lively interest which he has thrown over everything in 
this bewitching city. The races of the rival boats to-day were 
not a regular part of the festa, and were not regularly contested. 
The gondoliers were exhibiting themselves merely, and the peo- 
ple soon ceased to be interested in them. 

We rowed up and down till dark, following here and there the 



240 VENETIAN SUNSET. 



boats whose freights attracted us, and exclaiming every moment 
at some new glimpse of beauty. There is really a surprising 
proportion of loveliness in Venice. The women are all large, 
probably from never walking, and other indolent habits conse- 
quent upon want of exercise ; and an oriental air, sleepy and 
passionate, is characteristic of the whole race. One feels that he 
has come among an entirely new class of women, and hence, pro- 
bably, the far-famed fascination of Venice to foreigners . 

The sunset happened to be one of those so peculiar to Italy, 
and which are richer and more enchanting in Venice than in any 
other part of it, from the character of its scenery. It was a sun- 
set without a cloud ; but at the horizon the sky was dyed of a 
deep orange, which softened away toward the zenith almost im- 
perceptibly, the whole west like a wall of burning gold. The 
mingled softness and splendor of these skies is indescribable. 
Everything is touched with the same hue. A mild, yellow glow 
is all over the canals and buildings. The air seems filled with 
glittering golden dust, and the lines of the architecture, and the 
outlines of the distant islands, and the whole landscape about you 
is mellowed and enriched with a new and glorious light. I have 
seen one or two such sunsets in America ; but there the sunsets 
are bolder and clearer, and with much more sublimity — they 
have rarely the voluptuous coloring of those in Italy. 

It was delightful to glide along over a sea of light so richly 
tinted, among those graceful gondolas, with their freights of 
gayety and beauty. As the glow on the sky began to fade, they 
all turned their prows toward San Marc, and dropping into a 
slower motion, the whole procession moved on together to the 
stairs of the piazzetta ; and by the time the twilight was per- 
ceptible, the cafes were crowded, and the square was like one 



PRIVILEGED ADMISSION. 241 



great fete. We passed the evening in wandering up and down, 
never for an instant feeling like strangers, and excited and 
amused till Ions; after midnight. 

After several days' delay, we received an answer this morning 
from the authorities, with permission to. see the bridge of sighs, 
and the prisons of the ducal palace. We landed at the broad 
stairs, and passing the desolate court, with its marble pillars and 
statues green with damp and neglect, ascended the " giant's 
steps," and found the warder waiting for us, with his enormous 
keys, at the door of a private passage. At the bottom of a stair- 
case we entered a close gallery, from which the first range of 
cells opened. The doors were broken down, and the guide hold- 
ing his torch in them for a moment in passing, showed us the 
same dismal interior in each — a mere cave, in which you would 
hardly think it possible to breathe, with a raised platform for a 
bed, and a small hole in the front wall to admit food and what air 
could find its way through from the narrow passage. There 
were eight of these ; and descending another flight of damp steps, 
we came to a second range, differing only from the first in their 
slimy dampness. These are the cells of which Lord Byron gives 
a description in the notes to the fourth canto of Childe Harold 
He has transcribed, if you remember, the inscription from the 
ceilings and walls of one which was occupied successively by the 
victims of the Inquisition. The letters are cut rudely enough, 
and must have been done entirely by feeling, as there is no possi- 
bility of the penetration of a ray of light. I copied them with 
some difficulty, forgetting that they were in print, and, comparing 
them afterward with my copy of Childe Harold, I found them 
exactly the same, and I refer you, therefore, to his notes. 

In a range of cells still below these, and almost suffocating 
11 



242 GUILLOTINING. 



from their closeness, one was shown us in which prisoners were 
strangled. The rope was passed through an iron grating of four 
bars, the executioner standing outside the cell. The prisoner 
within sat upon a stone, with his back to the grating, and the 
cord was passed round his neck, and drawn till he was choked. 
The wall of the cell was covered with blood, which had spattered 
against it with some violence. The guide explained it by saying, 
that owing to the narrowness of the passage the executioner had 
no room to draw the cord, and to expedite his business his 
assistant at the same time plunged a dagger into the neck of the 
victim. The blood had flowed widely over the wall, and ran to 
the floor in streams. With the darkness of the place, the diffi- 
culty I found in breathing, and the frightful reality of the scenes 
before me, I never had in my life a comparable sensation of 
horror. 

At the end of the passage a door was walled up. It led, in the 
times of the republic, to dungeons under the canal, in which the 
prisoner died in eight days from his incarceration, at the farthest, 
from the noisome dampness and unwholesome vapors of the 
place. The guide gave us a harrowing description of the 
swelling of their bodies, and the various agonies of their slow 
death. I hurried away from the place with a sickness at my 
heart. In returning by the same way I passed the turning, and 
stumbled over a raised stone across the passage. It was the 
groove of a secret guillotine. Here many of the state and 
inquisition victims were put to death in the darkness of a narrow 
passage, shut out even in their last moment from the light and 
breath of heaven. The frame of the instrument had been taken 
away ; but the pits in the wall, which had sustained the axe, were 



BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 243 



still there ; and the sink on the other side, where the head fell, 
to carry off the blood. And these shocking executions took 
place directly before the cells of the other prisoners, within 
twenty feet from the farthest. In a cell close to this guillotine 
had been confined a state criminal for sixteen years. He was 
released at last by the arrival of the French, and on coming to 
the light in the square of San Marc was struck blind, and died in 
a few days. In another cell we stopped to look at the .attempts 
of a prisoner upon its walls, interrupted, happily, by his release. 
He had sawed several inches into the front wall, with some 
miserable instrument, probably a nail. He had afterward 
abandoned this, and had, with prodigious strength, taken up a 
block from the floor ; and, the guide assured us, had descended 
into the cell below. It was curious to look around his pent 
prison, and see the patient labor of years upon those rough walls, 
and imagine the workings of the human mind in such a miserable 
lapse of existence. 

We ascended to the light again, and the guide led us to a 
massive door, with two locks, secured by heavy iron bars. It 
swuug open with a scream, and we mounted a winding stair, 
and 

" Stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs." 

Two windows of close grating looked on either side upon the 
long canal below, and let in the only light to the covered passage. 
It is a gloomy place within, beautifully as its light arch hangs 
in the air from without. It was easy to employ the imagination 
as we stood on the stone where Childe Harold had stood before 
us, and conjured up in fancy the despair and agony that must 
have been pressed into the last glance at light and life that had 



244 SAN MARC. 



been sent through those barred windows. Across this bridge the 
condemned were brought to receive their sentence in the Chamber 
of the Ten, or to be confronted with bloody inquisitors, and then 
were led back over it to die. The last light that ever gladdened 
their eyes came through those close bars, and the gay Giudecca in 
the distance, with its lively waters covered with boats, must have 
made that farewell glance to a Venetian bitter indeed. The side 
next the prison is now massively walled up. We stayed, silently 
musing at the windows, till the old cicerone ventured to remind 
us that his time was precious. 

Ordering the gondola round to the stairs of the piazetta, we 
strolled for the first time into the church of San Marc. The four 
famous bronze horses stood with their dilated nostrils and fine 
action over the porch, bringing back to us Andrea Doria, and his 
threat ; and as I remembered the ruined palace of the old 
admiral at Genoa, and glanced at the Austrian soldier upon 
guard, in the very shadow of the winged lion, I could not but 
feel most impressively the moral of the contrast. The lesson 
was not attractive enough, however, to keep us in a burning sun, 
and we put aside the heavy folds of the drapery and entered. 
How deliciously cool are these churches in Italy ! We walked 
slowly up toward the distant altar. An old man rose from the 
base of one of the pillars, and put out his hand for charity. It 
is an incident that meets one at every step, and with half a glance 
at his face I passed on. I was looking at the rich mosaic on the 
roof, but his features lingered in my mind. They grew upon me 
still more strongly ; and as I became aware of the full expression 
of misery and pride upon them, I turned about to see what had 
become of him. My two friends had done each the very same 
thing, with the same feeling of regret, and were talking of the 



THE NOBLEMAN BEGGAR. 245 



old man when I came back to them. We went to the door, and 
looked all about the square, but he was no where to be seen. It 
is singular that he should have made the same impression upon 
all of us, of an old Venetian nobleman in poverty. Slight as 
my glance was, the noble expression of sadness about his fine 
white head and strong features, are still indelible in my memory. 
The prophecy which Byron puts into the mouth of the con- 
demned Doge, is still true in every particular : — 

" When the Hebrew's in thy palaces, 



The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek 
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his ; 
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread^ &c. 

The church of San Marc is rich to excess, and its splendid 
mosaic pavement is sunk into deep pits with age and the yielding 
foundations on which its heavy pile is built. Its pictures are not 
so fine as those of the other churches of Venice, but its age and 
historic associations make it by far the most interesting. 



( 



LETTERXXXII. 

VENICE SCENES BY MOONLIGHT THE CANALS THE ARMENIAN 

ISLAND THE ISLAND OF THE INSANE IMPROVEMENTS MADE 

BY NAPOLEON SHADED WALKS PAVILION AND ARTIFICIAL 

HILL ANTIDOTES TO SADNESS PARTIES ON THE CANALS 

NARROW STREETS AND SMALL BRIDGES THE RIALTO MER- 
CHANTS AND IDLERS SHELL-WORK AND JEWELRY POETRY 

AND HISTORY GENERAL VIEW OF THE CITY THE FRIULI 

MOUNTAINS THE SHORE OF ITALY A SILENT PANORAMA 

THE ADRIATIC PROMENADERS AND SITTERS, ETC. 

We stepped into the gondola to-night as the shadows of the 
moon began to be perceptible, with orders to Giuseppe to take us 
where he would. Abroad in a summer 's moonlight in Venice, is 
a line that might never be written but as the scene of a play. 
You can not miss pleasure. If it were only the tracking silently 
and swiftly the bosom of the broader canals lying asleep like 
streets of molten silver between the marble palaces, or shooting 
into the dark shadows of the narrower, with the black spirit-like 
gondolas gliding past, or lying in the shelter of a low and not 



i* ... 



AN EVENING IN VENICE. 247 

unoccupied balcony ; or did you but loiter on in search of music, 
lying unperceived beneath the windows of a palace, and listening, 
half asleep, to the sound of the guitar and the song of the invis- 
ible player within ; this, with the strange beauty of every building 
about you, and the loveliness of the magic lights and shadows, 
were enough to make a night of pleasure, even were no charm of 
personal adventure to be added to the enumeration. 

We glided along under the Rialto, talking of Belvidera, and 
Othello, and Shylock, and, entering a cross canal, cut the arched 
shadow of the Bridge of Sighs, hanging like a cobweb in the air, 
and shot in a moment forth to the full, ample, moonlit bosom of 
the Giudecca. This is the canal that makes the harbor and 
washes the stairs of San Marc. The Lido lay off at a mile's 
distance across the water, and, with the moon riding over it, the 
bay between us as still as the sky above, and brighter, it looked 
like a long cloud pencilled like a landscape in the heavens. To 
the right lay the Armenian island, which Lord Byron visited so 
often, to study with the fathers at the convent ; and, a little 
nearer the island of the Insane — spite of its misery, asleep, with 
a most heavenly calmness on the sea. You remember the 
touching story of the crazed girl, who was sent here with a 
broken heart, described as putting her hand through the grating 
at the dash of every passing gondola, with her unvarying and 
and affecting " Venite per me 1 Venite per me ?" 

At a corner of the harbor, sdme three quarters of a mile from 
San Marc, lies an island once occupied by a convent. Napoleon 
raised the buildings, and connecting it with the town by a new, 
handsome street and a bridge, laid out the ground as a public 
garden. We debarked at the stairs, and passed an hour in strol- 
ling through shaded walks, filled with the gay Venetians, who 



248 THE STREETS OF VENICE. 



come to enjoy here what they find nowhere else, the smell of 
grass and green leaves. There is a pavilion upon an artificial 
hill in the centre, where the best lemonades and ices of Yenice 
are to be found ; and it was surrounded to-night by merry groups, 
amusing themselves with all the heart-cheering gayety of this 
delightful people. The very sight of them is an antidote to 
sadness. 

In returning to San Marc a large gondola crossed us, filled 
with ladies and gentlemen, and followed by another with a band 
of music. This is a common mode of making a party on the 
canals, and a more agreeable one never was imagined. We 
ordered the gondolier to follow at a certain distance, and spent 
an hour or two just keeping within the softened sound of the 
instruments. How romantic are the veriest, every-day occur- 
rences of this enchanting city. 

We have strolled to-day through most of the narrow streets 
between the Rialto and the San Marc. They are, more properly, 
alleys. You wind through them at sharp angles, turning con- 
stantly, from the interruption of the canals, and crossing the 
small bridges at every twenty yards. They are dark and cool ; 
and no hoof of any description ever passing through them, the 
marble flags are always smooth and clean ; and with the singular 
silence, only broken by the shuffling of feet, they are pleasant 
places to loiter in at noon-day, when the canals are sunny. 

e spent a half hour on the Rialto. This is the only bridge 
across the grand canal, and connects the two main parts of the 
city. It is, as you see by engravings, a noble span of a single 
arch, built of pure white marble. You pass it, ascending the 
arch by a long flight of steps to the apex, and descending again 
to the opposite side. It is very broad, the centre forming a 



W 



THE RIALTO. 249 



street, with shops on each side, with alleys outside these, next 
the parapet, usually occupied by idlers or merchants, probably 
very much as in the time of Shylock. Here are exposed the cases 
of shell-work and jewelry for which Venice is famous. The 
variety and cheapness of these articles are surprising. The 
Rialto has always been to me, as it is probably to most others, 
quite the core of romantic locality. I stopped on the upper stair 
of the arch, and passed my hand across my eyes to recall my 
idea of it, and realize that I was there. One is disappointed, 
spite of all the common sense in the world, not to meet Shylock 
and Antonio and Pierre. 

" Shylock and the Moor 
And Pierre cannot be swept or worn away," 

says Childe Harold ; and that, indeed, is the feeling everywhere 
in these romantic countries. You cannot separate them from 
the characters with which poetry or history once peopled them. 

At sunset we mounted into the tower of San Marc, to get a 
general view of the city. The gold-dust atmosphere, so common 
in Italy at this hour, was all over the broad lagunes and the far 
stretching city ; and she lay beneath us, in the midst of a sea of 
light, an island far out into the ocean, crowned with towers and 
churches, and heaped up with all the splendors of architecture. 
The Friuli mountains rose in the north with the deep blue dyes 
of distance, breaking up the else level horizon ; the shore of Italy 
lay like a low line-cloud in the west ; the spot where the Brenta 
empties into the sea glowing in the blaze of the sunset. About us 
lay the smaller islands, the suburbs of the sea-city, and all among 
them, and up and down the Giudecca, and away off in the lagunes, 
were sprinkled the thousand gondolas, meeting and crossing in 
11* 



250 SUNSET FROM SAN MARC. 



one continued and silent panorama. The Lido, with its long 
wall hemmed in the bay, and beyond this lay the wide Adriatic. 
The floor of San Marc's vast square was beneath, dotted over its 
many-colored marbles with promenaders, its cafes swarmed by 
the sitters outside, and its long arcades thronged. One of my 
pleasantest hours in Yenice was passed here. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

PALACES PALAZZO GRIMANI OLD STATUARY MALE AND FE- 
MALE CHERUBS THE BATH OF CLEOPATRA— TITIAN'S PALACE 

UNFINISHED PICTURE OF THE GREAT MASTER HIS MAGDA- 
LEN AND BUST HIS DAUGHTER IN THE ARMS OF A SATYR 

BEAUTIFUL FEMALE HEADS THE CHURCHES OF VENICE 

BURIAL-PLACES OF THE DOGES TOMB OF CANOVA — DEPARTURE 

FOR VERONA, ETC. 

We have passed a day in visiting palaces. There are some 
eight or ten in Venice, whose galleries are still splendid. We 
landed first at the stairs of the Palazzo Grimani, and were 
received by an old family servant, who sat leaning on his knees, 
and gazing idly into the -canal. The court and staircase were 
ornamented with statuary, that had not been moved for centuries. 
In the ante-room was a fresco painting by Georgione, in which 
there were two female cherubs, the first of that sex I ever saw 
represented. They were beautifully contrasted with the two 
male cherubs, who completed the picture, and reminded me 
strongly of Greenough's group in sculpture. After examining 



252 TITIAN'S PICTURES. 



several rooms, tapestried and furnished in such a style as 
befitted the palace of a Yenetian noble, when Venice was in 
her glory, we passed on to the gallery. The best picture in the 
first room was a large one by Cigoli, the lath of Cleopatra. The 
four attendants of the fair Egyptian are about her, and one is 
bathing her feet from a rich vase. Her figure is rather a 
voluptuous one, and her head is turned, but without alarm, to 
Antony, who is just putting aside the curtain and entering the 
room. It is a piece of fine coloring, rather of the Titian school, 
and one of the few good pictures left by the English, who have 
bought up almost all the private galleries of Venice. 

We stopped next at the stairs of the noble old Barlerigo 
Palace, in which Titian lived and died. We mounted the 
decaying staircases, imagining the choice spirits of the great 
painter's time, who had trodden them before us, and (as it was 
for ages the dwelling of one of the proudest races of Venice) the 
beauty and rank that had swept up and down those worn slabs of 
marble on nights of revel, in the days when Venice was a para- 
dise of splendid pleasure. How thickly come romantic fancies 
in such a place as this. We passed through halls hung with 
neglected pictures to an inner room, occupied only with those of 
Titian. Here he painted, and here is a picture half finished, as 
he left it when he died. His famous Magdalen^ hangs on the 
wall, covered with dirt ; and so, indeed, is everything in the 
palace. The neglect is melancholy. On a marble table stood a 
plaster bust of Titian, moulded by himself in his old age. It* is 
a most noble head, and it is difficult to look at it, and believe he 
could have painted a picture which hangs just against it — his own 
daughter in the arms of a satyr. There is an engraving from it 
in one of the souvenirs ; but instead of a satyr's head, she holds a 



LAST DAY IN VENICE. 253 



casket in her hands, which, though it does not sufficiently account 
for the delight of her countenance, is an improvement upon the 
original. Here, too, are several slight sketches of female heads, 
by the same master. Oh how beautiful they are ! There is one, 
less than the size of life, which I would rather have than his 
Magdalen. 



I have spent my last day in Venice in visiting churches. 
Their splendor makes the eye ache and the imagination weary. 
You would think the surplus wealth of half the empires of the 
world would scarce suffice to fill them as they are. I can give 
you no descriptions. The gorgeous tombs of the Doges are inte- 
resting, and the plain black monument over Marino Faliero made 
me linger. Canova's tomb is splendid ; and the simple slab 
under your feet in the church of the Frari, where Titian lies with 
his brief epitaph, is affecting — but, though I shall remember all 
these, the simplest as well as the grandest, a description would 
be wearisome to all who had not seen them. This evening at 
sunset I start in the post-boat for the mainland, on my way to 
the place of Juliet's tomb — Verona. My friends, the painters, 
are so attracted with the galleries here that they remain to copy, 
and I go back alone. Take a short letter from me this time, 
and expect to hear from me by the next earliest opportunity, and 
more at length. Adieu. 



LETTER XXXIV. 

DEPARTURE FROM VENICE A SUNSET SCENE PADUA SPLEN- 
DID HOTEL MANNERS OF THE COUNTRY VICENZA MID- 
NIGHT LADY RETURNING FROM A PARTY VERONA JULIET'S 

TOMB THE TOMB OF THE CAPULETS THE TOMBS OF THE 

SCALIGERS TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA A WALKING CHRON- 
ICLE PALACE OF THE CAPULETS ONLY COOL PLACE IN AN 

ITALIAN CITY BANQUETING HALL OF THE CAPULETS FACTS 

AND FICTION, ETC. 

We pushed from the post-office stairs in a gondola with six 
oars at sunset. It was melancholy to leave Venice. A hasty 
farewell look, as we sped down the grand canal, at the gorgeous 
palaces, even less famous than beautiful — a glance at the disap- 
pearing Rialto, and we shot out into the Giudecca in a blaze of 
sunset glory. Oh how magnificently looked Venice in that light 
— rising behind us from the sea — all her superb towers and 
palaces, turrets and spires, fused into gold ; and the waters about 
her, like a mirror of stained glass, without a ripple ! 

An hour and a half of hard rowing brought us to the nearest 



ITALIAN CIVILITY. 255 



land. You should go to Venice to know how like a dream a 
reality may be. You will find it difficult to realize, when you 
smell once more the fresh earth and grass and flowers, and walk 
about and see fields and mountains, that this city upon the sea 
exists out of the imagination. You float to it and about it and 
from it, in their light craft, so aerially, that it seems a vision. 

With a drive of two or three hours, half twilight, half moon- 
light, we entered Padua. It was too late to see the portrait of 
Petrarch, and I had not time to go to his tomb at Arqua, twelve 
miles distant, so, musing on Livy and Galileo, to both of whom 
Padua was a home, I inquired for a cafe. A new one had lately 
been built in the centre of the town, quite the largest and most 
thronged I ever saw. Eight or ten large, high-roofed halls were 
open, and filled with tables, at which sat more beauty and fashion 
than I supposed all Padua could have mustered. I walked 
through one after another, without finding a seat, and was about 
turning to go out, and seek a place of less pretension, when an 
elderly lady, who sat with a party of seven, eating ices, rose, with 
Italian courtesy, and offered me a chair at their table. I accep- 
ted it, and made the acquaintance of eight as agreeable and polish- 
ed people as it has been my fortune to meet. "We parted as if we 
had known each other as many weeks as minutes. I mention it 
as an instance of the manners of the country. 

Three hours more, through spicy fields and on a road lined 
with the country-houses of the Venetian nobles, brought us to 
Vicenza. It was past midnight, and not a soul stirring in the 
bright moonlit streets. I remember it as a kind of city of the 
dead. As we passed out of the opposite gate, we detained for a 
moment a carriage, with servants in splendid liveries, and a lady 
inside returning from a party, in full dress: I have rarely seen so 



256 JULIET'S TOMB. 



beautiful a head. The lamps shone strongly on a broad pearl 
fillet on her forehead, and lighted up features such as we do not 
often meet even in Italy. A gentleman leaned back in the 
corner of the carriage, fast asleep — probably her husband ! 



I breakfasted at Verona at seven. A humpbacked cicerone 
there took me to " Juliet's tomb." A very high wall, green 
with age, surrounds what was once a cemetery, just outside the 
city. An old woman answered the bell at the dilapidated gate, 
and, without saying a word, pointed to an empty granite sarco- 
phagus, raised upon a rude pile of stones. " Questa ?" asked I, 
with a doubtful look. " Questa," said the old woman. 
" Questa !" said the hunchback. And here, I was to believe, 
lay the gentle Juliet ! There was a raised place in the sarco- 
phagus, with a hollowed socket for the head, and it was about the 
measure for a woman ! I ran my fingers through the cavity, and 
tried to imagine the dark curls that covered the hand of Father 
Lawrence as he laid her down in the trance, and fitted her 
beautiful head softly to the place. But where was " the tomb of 
the Capulets ?" The beldame took me through a cabbage- 
garden, and drove off a donkey who was feeding on an artichoke 
that grew on the very spot. " Ecco !" said she, pointing to one 
of the slightly sunken spots on the surface. I deferred my 
belief, and paying an extra paul for the privilege of chipping off 
a fragment of the stone coffin, followed the cicerone. 

The tombs of the Scaligers were more authentic. They stand 
in the centre of the town, with a highly ornamental railing about 
them, and are a perfect mockery of death with their splendor. 



THE PALACE OF THE CAPULETTI. 257 



If the poets and scholars whom these petty princes drew to their 
court had been buried in these airy tombs beside them, one would 
look at them with some interest. JYow, one asks, " who were 
the Scaligers, that their bodies should be lifted high in air in the 
midst of a city, and kept for ages, in marble and precious 
stones r" With less ostentation, however, it were pleasant to be 
so disposed of after death, lifted thus into the sun, and in sight 
of moving and living creatures. 

I inquired for the old palace of the Capulets. The cicerone 
knew nothing about it, and I dismissed her and went into a cafe. 
u Two gentlemen of Verona" sat on different sides ; one reading, 
the other asleep, with his chin on his cane — an old, white-headed 
man, of about seventy. I sat down near the old gentleman, and 
by the time I had eaten my ice, he awoke. I addressed him in 
Italian, which I speak indifferently ; but, stumbling for a word, 
he politely helped me out in French, and I went on in that 
language with my inquiries. He was %frfl5fflT man — a walking 
chronicle of Yerona. He took up his hat and cane to conduct me 
to casa Capuletti, and on the way told me tb e^rue history, as I 
had heard it before, which differs but little, as you know, from 
Shakspeare's version. The whole story is in the annuals. 

After a half hour's walk among the handsomer, and more 
modern parts of the city, we stopped opposite a house of an 
antique construction, but newly stuccoed and painted. A wheel- 
wright occupied the lower story, and by the sign, the upper part 
was used as a tavern. " Impossible !" said I, as I looked at the 
fresh front and the staring sign. The old gentleman smiled, and 
kept his cane pointed at it in silence. " It is well authenticated," 
said he, after enjoying my astonishment a minute or two, " and the 
interior still bears marks of a palace." We went in and mounted 



25S A DINNER. 



the dirty staircase to a large hall on the second floor. The 
frescoes and cornices had not been touched, and I invited my 
kind old friend to an early dinner on the spot. He accepted, 
and we went back to the cathedral, and sat an hour in the only 
cool place in an Italian city. The best dinner the house could 
afford was ready when we returned, and a pleasanter one it has 
never been my fortune to sit down to ; though, for the meats, I 
have eaten better. That I relished an hour in the very hall 
where the masque must have been held, to which Romeo ventured 
in the house of his enemy, to see the fair Juliet, you may easily 
believe. The wine was not so bad, either, that my imagination 
did not warm all fiction into fact ; and another time, perhaps, I 
may describe my old friend and the dinner more particularly. 



9 



& 



LETTER XXXV. 

ANOTHER SHORT LETTER DEPARTURE FROM VERONA MANTUA 

FLEAS MODENA TASSONl's BUCKET A MAN GOING TO EXE- 
CUTION THE DUKE OF MODENA BOLOGNA AUSTRIAN OFFICERS 

THE APPENINES MOONLIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS ENGLISH 

BRIDAL PARTY PICTURESQUE SUPPER, ETC. 

I left Verona with the courier at sunset, and was at Mantua, 
in a few hours. I went to bed in a dirty hotel, the best in the 
place, and awoke, bitten at every pore By fleas^-the first I have 
encountered in Italy, strange as it may seem, in a country that 
swarms with them. For the next twenty-four hours I was in 
such positive pain that my interest in " Virgil's birthplace" quite 
evaporated. I hired a caleche, and travelled all night to Modena. 

I liked the town as I drove in, and after sleeping an hour or 
two, I went out in search of " Tassoni's bucket" (which Rogers 
says is not the true one), and the picture of " Ginevra." The 
first thing I met was a man going to execution. He was a tall, 
exceedingly handsome man ; and, I thought, a marked gentle- 
man, even in his fetters. He was one of the body-guard of the 
duke, and had joined a conspiracy against him, in which he had 



260 GOOD AND ILL-BREEDING. 



taken the first step by firing at him from a window as he passed. 
I saw him guillotined, but I will spare you the description. The 
duke is the worst tyrant in Italy, it is well known, and has been 
fired at eighteen times in the streets. So said the cicerone, who 

added, that " the d 1 took care of his own." After many 

fruitless inquiries, I could find nothing of " the picture," and I 
took my place for Bologna in the afternoon. 

I was at Bologna at ten the next morning. As I felt rather 
indisposed, I retained my seat with the courier for Florence ; 
and, hungry with travel and a long fast, went into a restaurant, 
to make the best use of the hour given me for refreshment. A 
party of Austrian officers sat at one end of the only table, 
breakfasting ; and here I experienced the first rudeness I have 
seen in Europe. I mention it to show its rarity, and the manner 
in which, even among military men, a quarrel is guarded against 
or prevented. A young man, who seemed the wit of the party, 
chose to make comments from time to time on the solidity of 
what he considered my breakfast. These became at last so 
pointed, that I v was compelled to rise and demand an apology. 
"With one voice, all except the offender, immediately sided with 
me, and insisted on the justice of the demand, with so many 
apologies of their own, that I regretted noticing the thing at all. 
The young man rose, after a minute, and offered me his hand in 
the frankest manner ; and then calling for a fresh bottle, they 
drank wine with me, and I went back to my breakfast. In 
America, such an incident would have ended, nine times out of 
ten, in a duel. 

The two mounted gens dParmes, who usually attend the courier 
at night, joined us as we began to ascend the Appenines. We 
stopped at eleven to sup on the highest mountain between 



BRIDAL PARTY. 261 



Bologna and Florence, and I was glad to get to the kitchen fire, 
the clear moonlight was so cold. Chickens were turning on the 
long spit, and sounds of high merriment came from the rooms 
above. A bridal party of English had just arrived, and every 
chamber and article of provision was engaged. They had 
nothing to give us. A compliment to the hostess and a bribe to 
the cook had their usual effect, however ; and as one of the 
dragoons had ridden back a mile or two for my travelling cap, 
which had dropped off while I was asleep, I invited them both, 
with the courier, to share my bribed supper. The cloth was 
spread right before the fire, on the same table with all the cook's 
paraphernalia, and a merry and picturesque supper we had of it. 
The rough Tuscan flasks of wine and Etruscan pitchers, the 
brazen helmets formed on the finest models of the antique, the 
long mustaches, and dark Italian eyes of the men, all in the 
bright light of a blazing fire, made a picture that Salvator Rosa 
would have relished. We had time for a hasty song or two after 
the dishes were cleared, and then went gayly on our way to 
Florence. 

Excuse the brevity of this epistle, but I must stop here, or 
lose the opportunity of sending. If my letters do not reach you 
with the utmost regularity, it is no fault of mine. You can not 
imagine the difficulty I frequently experience in getting a safe 
conveyance. 



LETTER XXXVI. 

BATHS OF LUCCA SARATOGA OF ITALY HILL SCENERY RIVER 

LIMA FASHIONABLE LODGINGS THE VILLA THE DUKe's PAL- 
ACE MOUNTAINS VALLEYS COTTAGES PEASANTS WINDING- 
PATHS AMUSEMENTS PRIVATE PARTIES BALLS FETES A 

CASINO ORIGINALS OF SCOTT's DIANA VERNON AND THE MISS 

PRATT OF THE INHERITANCE A SUMMER IN ITALY, ETC., ETC. 

I spent a week at the baths of Lucca, which is about sixty 
miles north of Florence^and the Saratoga of Italy. None of the 
cities are habitable in summer, for the heat, and there flocks all 
the world to bathe and keep cool by day, and dance and intrigue 
by night, from spring to autumn. It is very like the month of 
June in our country in many respects, and the differences are 
not disagreeable. The scenery is the finest of its kind in Italy. 
The whole village is built about a bridge across the river Lima, 
which meets the Serchio a half mile below. On both sides of the 
stream the mountains rise so abruptly, that the houses are 
erected against them, and from the summits on both sides you 
look directly down on the street. Half-way up one of the hills 
stands a cluster of houses, overlooking the valley to fine advan- 



MANNER OF LIVING. 263 



tage, and these are rather the most fashionable lodgings. Round 
the base of this mountain runs the Lima, and on its banks for a 
mile is laid out a superb road, at the extremity of which is. an- 
other cluster of buildings, called the Villa, composed of the 
duke's palace and baths, and some fifty lodging-houses. This, 
like the pavilion at Saratoga, is usually occupied by invalids and 
people of more retired habits. I have found no hill scenery in 
Europe comparable to the baths of Lucca. The mountains 
ascend so sharply and join so closely, that two hours of the sun 
are lost, morning and evening, and the heat is very little felt. 
The valley is formed by four or five small mountains, which are 
clothed from the base to the summit with the finest chestnut 
woods ; and dotted over with the nest-like cottages of the Luc- 
cese peasants, the smoke from which, morning and evening, 
breaks through the trees, and steals up to the summits with an 
effect than which a painter could not conceive anything more 
beautiful. It is quite a little paradise ; and with the drives 
along the river on each side at the mountain foot, and the trim 
winding-paths in the hills, there is no lack of opportunity for the 
freest indulgence of a love of scenery or amusement. 

Instead of living as we do in great hotels, the people at these 
baths take their own lodgings, three or four families in a house, 
and meet in their drives and walks, or in small exclusive parties. 
The Duke gives a ball every Tuesday, to which all respectable 
strangers are invited ; and while I was there an Italian prince, 
who married into the royal family of Spain, gave a grand fete at 
the theatre. There is usually some party every night, and with 
the freedom, of a watering-place, they are rather the pleasantest 
I have seen in Italy. The Duke's chamberlain, an Italian cava- 
lier, has the charge of a casino, or public hall, which is open dav 



364 ORIGINALS OF NOVELS. 



and night for conversation, dancing and play. The Italians fre- 
quent it very much, and it is free to all well-dressed people ; and 
as there is always a band of music, the English sometimes make 
up a party and spend the evening there in dancing or promenad- 
ing. It is maintained at the Duke's expense, lights, music, and 
all, and he finds his equivalent in the profits of the gambling- 
bank. 

I scarce know who of the distinguished people I met there 
would interest you. The village was full of coroneted carriages, 
whose masters were nobles of every nation, and every reputation. 
The originals of two well-known characters happened to be there 
— Scott's Diana Vernon, and the Miss .Pratt of the Inheritance. 
The former is a Scotch lady, with five or six children ; a tall, 
superb woman still, with the look of a mountain-queen, who rode 
out every night with two gallant boys mounted on ponies, and 
dashing after her with the spirit you would bespeak for the sons 
of Die Vernon. Her husband was the best horseman there, and 
a "has been" handsome fellow, of about forty-five. An Italian 
abbe came up to her one night, at a small party, and told her he 
"wondered the king of England did not marry her." " Miss 
Pratt" was the companion of an English lady of fortune, who 
lived on the floor below me. She was still what she used to be, 
a much-laughed-at but much-sought person, and it was quite 
requisite to know her. She flew into a passion whenever the 
book was named. The rest of the world there was very much 
what it is elsewhere — a medley of agreeable and disagreeable, in- 
telligent and stupid, elegant and awkward. The women were 
perhaps superior in style and manner to those ordinarily met in 
such places in America, and the men vastly inferior. It is so 
wherever I have been on the continent. 



ILL. 265 

I remained at the baths a few weeks, recruiting — for the hot 
weather and travel had, for the first time in my life, worn upon 
me. They say that a summer in Italy is equal to five years else- 
where, in its ravages upon the constitution, and so I found it. 

12 



LETTER XXXVII. 

RETURN TO VENICE— CITY OF LUCCA— A MAGNIFICENT WALL— 
A CULTIVATED AND LOVELY COUNTRY— A COMFORTABLE 

PALACE THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF LUCCA THE APPE- 

NINES— MOUNTAIN SCENERY— MODENA— VIEW OF AN IM- 
MENSE PLAIN— VINEYARDS AND FIELDS— AUSTRIAN TROOPS 
—A PETTY DUKE AND A GREAT TYRANT— SUSPECTED 

TRAITORS LADIES UNDER ARREST MODENESE NOBILITY 

SPLENDOR AND MEANNESS— CORREGIO's BAG OF COPPER 
COIN— PICTURE GALLERY— CHIEF OF THE CONSPIRATORS- 
OPPRESSIVE LAWS— ANTIQUITY— MUSEUM— BOLOGNA— MANU- 
SCRIPTS OF TASSO AND ARIOSTO— THE PO— AUSTRIAN CUS- 
TOM-HOUSE—POLICE OFFICERS— DIFFICULTY ON BOARD THE 
STEAMBOAT VENICE ONCE MORE, ETC. 

After five or six weeks sejour at the baths of Lucca, the only 
exception to the pleasure of which was an attack of the " country 
fever," I am again on the road, with a pleasant party, hound for 
Venice ; but passing by cities I had not seen, I have been from 
one place to another for a week, till I find myself to-day in Mo- 
dena— a place I might as well not have seen at all as to have 



THE DUKE OF LUCCA. 267 



hurried through, as I was compelled to do a month or two since. 
To go back a little, however, our first stopping-place was the 
city of Lucca, about fifteen miles from the baths ; a little, clean, 
beautiful gem of a town, with a wall three miles round only, and 
on the top of it a broad carriage road, giving you on every side 
views of the best cultivated and loveliest country in Italy. The 
traveller finds nothing so rural and quiet, nothing so happy-look- 
ing, in the whole land. The radius to the horizon is nowhere 
more than five or six miles ; and the bright green farms and 
luxuriant vineyards stretch from the foot of the wall to the sum- 
mits of the lovely mountains which form the theatre around. It 
is a very ancient town, but the duchy is so rich and flourishing 
that it bears none of the marks of decay, so common to even 
more modern towns in Italy. Here Caesar is said to have 
stopped to deliberate on passing the Rubicon. 

The palace of the Duke is the prettiest I ever saw. There is 
not a room in it you could not live in — and no feeling is less 
common than this in visiting palaces. It is furnished with 
splendor, too — but with such an eye to comfort, such taste and 
elegance, that you would respect the prince's affections that 
should order such a one. The Duke of Lucca, however, is never 
at home. He is a young man of twenty-eight or thirty, and 
spends his time and money in travelling, as caprice takes him. 
He has been now for a year at Vienna, where he spends the 
revenue of these rich plains most lavishly. The Duchess, too, 
travels always, but in a different direction, and the people com- 
plain loudly of the desertion. For many years they have now 
been both absent and parted. The Duke is a member of the 
royal family of Spain, and at the death of Maria Louisa of 



268 MODENA. 



Parma, he becomes Duke of Parma, and the duchy goes to 
Tuscany. 

From Lucca we crossed the Appenines, by a road seldom 
travelled, performing the hundred miles to Modena in three 
days. We suffered, as all must who leave the high roads in 
continental countries, more privations than the novelty was 
worth. The mountain scenery was fine, of course, but I think 
less so than that on the passes between Florence and Bologna, 
the account of which I wrote a few weeks since. We were too 
happy to get ttf Modena. 

Modena lies in the vast campagna lying between the Appe- 
nines and the Adriatic — an immense plain looking like the sea 
as far as the eye can stretch from north to south. The view of 
it from the mountains in descending is magnificent beyond de- 
scription. The capital of the little duchy lay in the midst of us, 
like a speck on a green carpet, and smaller towns and rivers 
varied its else unbroken surface of vineyards and fields. We 
reached the gates just as a fine sunset was reddening the ram- 
parts and towers, and giving up our passports to the soldier on 
guard, rattled into the hotel. 

The town is full of Austrian troops, and in our walk to the 
ducal palace we met scarce any one else. The streets look 
gloomy and neglected, and the people singularly dispirited and 
poor. This petty Duke of Modena is a man of about fifty, and 
said to be the greatest tyrant, after Don Miguel, in the world. 
The prisons are full of suspected traitors ; one hundred and 
thirty of the best families of the duchy are banished for liberal 
opinions ; three hundred and over are now under arrest (among 
them a considerable number of ladies) ; and many of the Mo- 
denese nobility are now serving in the galleys for conspiracy. He 



THE PALACE. 26 g 



has been shot at eighteen times. The last man who attempted 
it, as I stated in a former letter, was executed the morning I 
passed through Modena on my return from Venice. With all 
this he is a fine soldier, and his capital looks in all respects like 
a garrison in the first style of discipline. He is just now absent 
at a chateau three miles in the country. 

The palace is a union of splendor and meanness within. The 
endless succession of state apartments are gorgeously draped and 
ornamented, but the entrance halls and intermediate passages are 
furnished with an economy you would scarce find exceeded in the 
" worst inn's worst room » Modena is Corregio's birthplace, 
and it was from a Duke of Modena that he received the bag of 
copper coin which occasioned his death. It was, I think, the 
meagre reward of his celebrated "Night," and he broke a blood- 
vessel in carrying it to his house. The Duke has sold this pic- 
ture, as well as every other sufficiently celebrated to bring a 
princely price. His gallery is a heap of trash, with but here Ld 
there a redeeming thing. Among others, there is a portrait of a 
boy, I think by Rembrandt, very intellectual and lofty, yet with 
all the youthfulness of fourteen ; and a copy of " Giorgione's 
mistress," the « love in life" of the Manfrini palace, so admired 
by Lord Byron. There is also a remarkably fine crucifixion, I 
forget by whom. 

The front of the palace is renowned for its beauty. In a 
street near it, we passed a house half battered down by cannon. 
It was the residence of the chief of a late conspiracy, who was 
betrayed a few hours before his plot was ripe. He refused to 
surrender, and, before the ducal troops had mastered his house, 
the revolt commenced and the Duke was driven from Modena! 
He returned in a week or two with some three thousand Aus- 



270 BOLOGNA. 



trians, and has kept possession by their assistance ever since. 
While we were waiting dinner at the hotel, I took up a volume 
of the Modenese law, and opened upon a statute forbidding all 
subjects of the duchy to live out of the Duke's territories under 
pain of the entire confiscation of their property. They are liable 
to arrest, also, if it is suspected that they are taking measures to 
remove. The alternatives are oppression here or poverty else- 
where, and the result is that the Duke has scarce a noble left in 
his realm. 

Modena is a place of great antiquity. It was a strong-hold in 
the time of Csesar, and after his death was occupied by Brutus, 
and besieged by Antony. There are no traces left, except some 
mutilated and uncertain relics in the museum. 

We drove to Bologna the following morning, and I slept once 
more in Bogers's chamber at "the Pilgrim." I have described 
this city, which I passed on my way to Venice, so fully before, 
that I pass it over now with the mere mention. I should not 
forget, however, my acquaintance with a snuffy little librarian, 
who showed me the manuscripts of Tasso and Ariosto, with 
much amusing importance. 

We crossed the Po to the Austrian custom-house. Our 
trunks were turned inside out, our papers and books examined, 
our passports studied for flaws — as usual. After two hours of 
vexation, we were permitted to go on boad the steamboat, thank- 
ing Heaven that our troubles were over for a week or two, and 
giving Austria the common benediction she gets from travellers. 
The ropes were cast off from the pier when a police retainer 
came running to the boat, and ordered our whole party on shore, 
bag and baggage. Our passports, which had been retained to be 
sent on to Venice by the captain, were irregular. Wo had not 



VENICE AGAIN. 271 



passed by Florence, and they had not the signature of the Aus- 
trian ambassador. We were ordered imperatively back over the 
Po, with a flat assurance, that, without first going to Florence, we 
never could see Venice. To the ladies of the party, who had 
made themselves certain of seeing this romance of cities in 
twelve hours, it was a sad disappointment, and after seeing them 
safely seated in the return shallop, I thought I would go and 
make a desperate appeal to the commissary in person. My 
nominal commission as attache to the Legation at Paris, served me 
in this case as it had often done before, and making myself and 
the honor of the American nation responsible for the innocent 
designs of a party of ladies upon Venice, the dirty and surly 
commissary signed our passports and permitted us to remand our 
baggage. 

It was with unmingled pleasure that I saw again the towers 
and palaces of Venice rising from the sea. The splendid ap- 
proach to the Piazzetta ; the transfer to the gondola and its soft 
motion ; the swift and still glide beneath the balconies of palaces, 
with whose history I was familiar ; and the renewal of my own 
first impressions in the surprise and delight of others, made up, 
altogether, a moment of high happiness. There is nothing like 
— nothing equal to Venice. She is the city of the imagination 
— the realization of romance — the queen of splendor and softness 
and luxury. Allow all her decay — feel all her degradation — see 
the " Huns in her palaces," and the " Greek upon her mart," 
and, after all, she is alone in the world for beauty, and. spoiled 
as she has been by successive conquerors, almost for riches too. 
Her churches of marble, with their floors of precious stones, and 
walls of gold and mosaic ; her ducal palace, with its world of art 
and massy magnificence ; her private palaces, with their fronts 



272 ITS SPLENDOR. 



of inland gems, and balconies and towers of inimitable workman- 
ship and riches ; her lovely islands and mirror-like canals — all 
distinguish her, and will till the sea rolls over her, as one of the 
wonders of time. 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

VENICE CHURCH OF THE JESUITS A MARBLE CURTAIN ORIGI- 
NAL OF TITIAn's MARTYRDOM OF ST. LAWRENCE A SUMMER 

MORNING ARMENIAN ISLAND VISIT TO A CLOISTER A CELE- 
BRATED MONK THE POET'S STUDY ILLUMINATED COPIES OF 

THE BIBLE THE STRANGER'S BOOK A CLEAN PRINTING-OFFICE 

THE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE INNOCENT AND HAPPY- 
LOOKING MANIACS THE CELLS FOR UNGOVERNABLE LUNATICS 

BARBARITY OF THE KEEPER MISERABLE PROVISIONS AN- 
OTHER GLANCE AT THE PRISONS UNDER THE DUCAL PALACE 

THE OFFICE OF EXECUTIONER THE ARSENAL THE STATE GAL- 
LERY THE ARMOR OF HENRY THE FOURTH A CURIOUS KEY 

MACHINES FOR TORTURE, ETC. 

In a first visit to a great European city it is difficult not to let 

many things escape notice. Among several churches which I 

did not see when I was here before, is that of the Jesuits. It is 

a temple worthy of the celebrity of this splendid order. The 

proportions are finer than those of most of the Venetian churches, 

and the interior is one tissue of curious marbles and gold. As 

we entered, we were first struck with the grace and magnificence 
12* 



274 ARMENIAN ISLAND. 



of a large heavy curtain, hanging over the pulpit, the folds of 
which, and the figures wrought upon it, struck us as unusually- 
elegant and ingenious. Our astonishment was not lessened when 
v we found it was one solid mass of verd-antique marble. Its sweep 
» over the side and front of the pulpit is as careless as if it were 
done by the wind. The whole ceiling of the church is covered 
with sequin gold — the finest that is coined. In one of the side 
chapels is the famous " Martyrdom of St. Lawrence/' by Titian. 
A fine copy of it (said in the catalogue to be the original) was 
exhibited in the Boston Athenaeum a year or two since. 



It is Sunday, and the morning has been of a heavenly, sum- 
mer, sunny calmness, such as is seen often in Italy, and once in 
a year, perhaps, in New England. It is a kind of atmosphere, 
that, to breathe is to be grateful and happy. We have been to 
the Armenian island — a little gem on the bosom of the Lagune, 
a mile from Venice, where stands the monastery, to which place 
Lord Byron went daily to study and translate with the fathers. 
There is just room upon it for a church, a convent, and a little 
garden. It looks afloat on the water. Our gondola glided up to 
the clean stone stairs, and we were received by one of the order, 
a hale but venerable looking monk, in the Armenian dress, the 
long black cassock and small round cap, his beard long and scat- 
tered with gray, and his complexion and eyes of a cheerful, 
child-like clearness, such as regular and simple habits alone can 
give. I inquired, as we walked through the cloister, for the 
father with whom Lord Byron studied, and of whom the poet 
speaks so often and so highly in his letters. The monk smiled 



AGREEABLE MONK. 275 



and bowed modestly, and related a little incident that had hap- 
pened to him at Padua, where he had met two American travel- 
lers, who had asked him of himself in the same manner. He had 
forgotten their names, but from his description I presumed one 
to have been Professor Longfellow, of Bowdoin University: 

The stillness and cleanliness about the convent, as we passed 
through the cloisters and halls, rendered the impression upon a 
stranger delightful. We passed the small garden, in which grew 
a stately oleander in full blossom, and thousands of smaller 
flowers, in neat beds and vases, and after walking through the 
church, a plain and pretty one, we came to the library, where 
the monk had studied with the poet. It is a proper place for 
study — disturbed by nothing but the dash of oars from a passing 
gondola, or the screams of a sea-bird, and well furnished with 
books in every language, and very luxurious chairs. The monk 
showed us an encyclopaedia, presented to himself by an English 
lady of rank, who had visited the convent often. His handsome 
eyes flashed as he pointed to it on the shelves. We went next 
into a smaller room, where the more precious manuscripts are 
deposited, and he showed us curious illuminated copies of the 
Bible, and gave us the stranger's book to inscribe our names. 
Byron had scrawled his there before us, and the Empress 
Maria Louisa had written hers twice on separate visits. The 
monk then brought us a volume of prayers, in twenty-five lan- 
guages, translated by himself. We bought copies, and upon 
some remark of one of the ladies upon his acquirements, he ran 
from one language to another, speaking English. French, 
Italian, German, and Dutch, with equal facility. His English 
was quite wonderful ; and a lady from Rotterdam, who was with 
us, pronounced his Dutch and German excellent. We then 



276 INSANE HOSPITAL. 



bought small histories of the order, written by an English gen- 
tleman, who had studied at the island, and passed on to the 
printing office — the first clean one I ever saw, and quite the best 
appointed. Here the monks print their Bibles, and prayer- 
books in really beautiful Armenian type, beside almanacs, and 
other useful publications for Constantinople, and other parts of 
Turkey. The monk wrote his name at our request (Pascal 
Aucher) in the blank leaves of our books, and we parted from 
him at the water-stairs with sincere regret. I recommend this 
monastery to all travellers to Venice. 

On our return we passed near an island, upon which stands a 
single building — an insane hospital. I was not very curious to 
enter it, but the gondolier assured us that it was a common visit 
for strangers, and we consented to go in. We were received by 
the keeper, who went through the horrid scene like a regular 
cicerone, giving us a cold and rapid history of every patient that 
arrested our attention. The men's apartment was the first, and 
I should never have supposed them insane. They were all silent, 
and either read or slept like the inmates of common hospitals. 
We came to a side cloor, and as it opened, the confusion of a 
hundred tongues burst through, and we were introduced into the 
apartment for women. The noise was deafening. After travers- 
ing a short gallery, we entered a large hall, containing perhaps 
fifty females. There was a simultaneous smoothing back of the 
hair and prinking of the dress through the room. These the 
keeper said, were the well-behaved patients, and more innocent 
and happy-looking people I never saw. If to be happy is to be 
wise, I should believe with the mad philosopher, that the world 
and the lunatic should change names. One large, fine-looking 
woman took upon herself to do the honors of the place, and came 



INSANE PATIENTS. 277 



forward with a graceful curtesy and a smile of condescension and 
begged the ladies to take off their bonnets, and offered me a chair. 
Even with her closely-shaven head and coarse flannel dress, she 
seemed a lady. The keeper did not know her history. Her 
attentions were occasionally interrupted by a stolen glance at the 
keeper, and a shrinking in of the shoulders, like a child that had 
been whipped. One handsome and perfectly healthy-looking girl 
of eighteen, walked up and down the hall, with her arms folded, 
and a sweet smile on her face, apparently lost in pleasing thought, 
and taking no notice of us. Only one was in bed, and her face 
might have been a conception of Michael Angelo for horror. 
Her hair was uncut, and fell over her eyes, her tongue hung 
from her mouth, her eyes were sunken and restless, and the 
deadly pallor over features drawn into the intensest look of 
mental agony, completing a picture that made my heart sick. 
Her bed was clean, and she was as well cared for as she could be, 
apparently. 

We mounted a flight of stairs to the cells. Here were confined 
those who were violent and ungovernable. The mingled sounds 
that came through the gratings as we passed were terrific. 
Laughter of a demoniac wildness, moans, complaints in every 
language, screams — every sound that could express impatience 
and fear and suffering saluted our ears. The keeper opened 
most of the cells and went in, rousing occasionally one that was 
asleep, and insisting that all should appear at the grate. I 
remonstrated of course, against such a piece of barbarity, but he 
said he did it for all strangers, and took no notice of our pity. 
The cells were small, just large enough for a bed, upon the post 
of which hung a small coarse cloth bag, containing two or three 
loaves of the coarsest bread. There was no other furniture. 



278 THE LAGUNE. 



The beds were bags of straw, without sheets or pillows, and each 
had a coarse piece of matting for a covering. I expressed some 
horror at the miserable provision made for their comfort, but was 
told that they broke and injured themselves with any loose furni- 
ture, and were so reckless in their habits, that it was impossible to 
give them any other bedding than straw, which was changed every 
day. I observed that each patient had a wisp of long straw tied 
up in a bundle, given them, as the keeper said, to employ their 
hands and amuse them. The wooden blind before one of the 
gratings was removed, and a girl flew to it with the ferocity of a 
tiger, thrust her hands at us through the bars, and threw her 
bread out into the passage, with a look of violent and uncon- 
trolled anger such as I never saw. She was tall and very fine- 
looking. In another cell lay a poor creature, with her face dread- 
fully torn, and her hands tied strongly behind her. She was tossing 
about restlessly upon her straw, and muttering to herself indis- 
tinctly. The man said she tore her face and bosom whenever 
she could get her hands free, and was his worst patient. In the 
last cell was a girl of eleven or twelve years, who began to cry 
piteously the moment the bolt was drawn. She was in bed, and 
uncovered her head very unwillingly, and evidently expected to 
be whipped. There was another range of cells above, but we 
had seen enough, and were glad to get out upon the calm 
Lagune. There could scarcely be a stronger contrast than 
between those two islands lying side by side — the first the very 
picture of regularity and happiness, and the last a refuge for 
distraction and misery. The feeling of gratitude to God for 
reason after such a scene is irresistible. 



STATE GALLEY. 279 



In visiting again the prisons under the ducal palace, several 
additional circumstances were told us. The condemned were 
compelled to become executioners. They were led from their 
cells into the dark passage where stood the secret guillotine, and 
without warning forced to put to death a fellow-creature either 
by this instrument, or the more horrible method of strangling 
against a grate. The guide said that the office of executioner 
was held in such horror that it was impossible to fill it, and hence 
this dreadful alternative. When a prisoner was about to be 
executed, his clothes were sent home to his family with the 
message, that " the state would care for him." How much more 
agonizing do these circumstances seem, when we remember that 
most of the victims were men of rank and education, condemned 
on suspicion of political crimes, and often with families refined to 
a most unfortunate capacity for mental torture ! One ceases to 
regret the fall of the Venetian republic, when he sees with how 
much crime and tyranny her splendor was accompanied. 



I saw at the arsenal to-day the model of the " Bucentaur," the 
state galley in which the Doge of Venice went out annually to 
marry him to the sea. This poetical relic (which, in Childe 
Harold's time, "lay rotting unrestored") was burnt by the 
French — why, I can not conceive. It was a departure from their 
usual habit of respect to the curious and beautiful ; and if they had 
been jealous of such a vestige of the grandeur of a conquered 
people, it might at least have been sent to Paris as easily as 
" Saint Mark's steeds of brass," and would have been as great a 
curiosity. I would rather have seen the Bucentaur than all their 



280 INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE. 



other plunder. The arsenal contains many other treasures. 
The armor given to the city of Venice by Henry the Fourth is 
there, and a curious key constructed to shoot poisoned needles, 
and used by one of the Henrys, I have forgotten which, to 
despatch any one who offended him in his presence. One or 
two curious machines for torture were shown us — mortars into 
which the victim was put, with an iron armor which was screwed 
down upon him till his head was crushed, or confession stopped 
the torture. 



LETTER XXXIX. 

VENICE SAN MARC'S CHURCH RECCOLLECTIONS OF HOME 

FESTA AT THE LIDO A POETICAL SCENE AN ITALIAN SUNSET 

PALACE OF MANFRINI PESARO's PALACE AND COUNTRY 

RESIDENCE CHURCH OE SAINT MARY OF NAZARETH PADUA 

THE UNIVERSITY STATUES OF DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNERS 

THE PUBLIC PALACE BUST OF TITUS LIVY BUST OF PE- 
TRARCH CHURCH OF ST. ANTONY DURING MASS THE SAINT'S 

CHIN AND TONGUE MARTYRDOM OF ST. AGATHA AUSTRIAN 

AND GERMAN SOLDIERS TRAVELLER^ RECORD-BOOK PE- 

TRARCH'S COTTAGE AND TOMB ITALIAN SUMMER AFTERNOON 

THE POET'S HOUSE A FINE VIEW THE ROOM WHERE 

PETRARCH DIED, ETC. 

I was loitering down one of the gloomy aisles of San Marc's 
church, just at twilight this evening, listening to the far-off Ave 
Maria in one of the distant chapels, when a Boston gentleman, 
who I did not know was abroad, entered with his family, and 
passed up to the altar. It is difficult to conceive with what a 
tide the half-forgotten circumstances of a home, so far away, 
rush back upon one's heart in a strange land, after a long 



282 VENICE AT EVENING. 



absence, at the sight of familiar faces. I could realize nothing 
about me after it — the glittering mosiac of precious stones under 
my feet, the gold and splendid colors of the roof above me, the 
echoes of the monotonous chant through the arches — foreign and 
strange as these circumstances all were. I was irresistibly at 
home, the familiar pictures of my native place filling my eye, and 
the recollections of those whom I love and honor there crowding 
upon my heart with irresistible emotion. The feeling is a pain- 
ful one, and with the necessity for becoming again a forgetful 
wanderer, remembering home only as a di*eam, one shrinks from 
such things. The reception of a letter, even, destroys a day. 



There has been a grand festa to-day at the Lido. This, you 
know, is a long island, forming part of the sea-wall of Yenice. 
It is, perhaps, five or six miles long, covered in part with groves 
of small trees, and a fine green sward ; and to the Venetians, to 
whom leaves and grass are holyday novelties, is the scene of their 
gayest festas. They were dancing and dining under the trees ; 
and in front of the fort which crowns the island, the Austrian 
commandant had pitched his tent, and with a band of military 
music, the officers were waltzing with ladies in a circle of green 
sward, making altogether a very poetical scene. We passed an 
hour or two wandering among this gay and unconscious people, 
and came home by one of the loveliest sunsets that ever melted 
sea and sky together. Venice looked like a vision of a city 
hanging in mid-air. 



THE PATRIOTISM OF A NOBLE. 283 



We have been again to that delightful palace of Manfrini. 
The " Portia swallowing fire," the Rembrandt portrait, the 
far-famed " Griorgione, son and wife," and twenty others, which 
to see is to be charmed, delighted me once more. I believe the 
surviving Manfrini is the only noble left in Venice. Pesaro, 
who disdained to live in his country after its liberty was gone, 
died lately in London. His palace here is the finest structure I 
have seen, and his country-house on the Brenta is a paradise. It 
must have been a strong feeling which exiled him from them for 
eighteen years. 

In coming from the Manfrini, we stopped at the church of 
" St. Mary of Nazareth." This is one of those whose cost might 
buy a kingdom. Its gold and marbles oppress one with their 
splendor. In the centre of the ceiling is a striking fresco of the 
bearing of " Loretto's chapel through the air ;" and in one of the 
corners a lovely portrait of a boy looking over a balustrade, done 
by the artist fourteen years of age ! 



Padua. — We have passed two days in this venerable city of 
learning, including a visit to Petrarch's tomb at Arqua. Tho 
university here is still in its glory, with fifteen hundred students. 
It has never declined, I believe, since Livy's time. The beautiful 
inner court has two or three galleries, crowded with the arms of 
the nobles and distinguished individuals who have received its 
honors. It has been the " cradle of princes" from every part of 
Europe. 

Around one of the squares of the city, stand forty or fifty 
statues of the great and distinguished foreigners who have 



284 CHURCH OF SAINT ANTONY. 



received their education here. It happened to be the month 
of vacation, and we could not see the interior. 

At a public palace, so renowned for the size and singular 
architecture of its principal hall, we saw a very antique bust of 
Titus Livy — a fine, cleanly-chiselled, scholastic old head, that 
looked like the spirit of Latin embodied. We went thence to the 
Duomo, where they show a beautiful bust of Petrarch, who lived 
at Padua some of the latter years of his life. It is a softer and 
more voluptuous countenance than is given him in the pictures. 

The church of Saint Antony here has stood just six hundred 
years. It occupied a century in building, and is a rich and noble 
old specimen of the taste of the times, with eight cupolas and 
towers, twenty-seven chapels inside, four immense organs, and 
countless statues and pictures. Saint Antony's body lies in the 
midst of the principal chapel, which is surrounded with relievos 
representing his miracles, done in the best manner of the glorious 
artists of antiquity. We were there during mass, and the people 
were nearly suffocating themselves in the press to touch the altar 
and tomb of the saint. This chapel was formerly lit by massive 
silver lamps, which Napoleon took, presenting them with their 
models in gilt. He also exacted from them three thousand 
sequins for permission to retain the chin and tongue of St. 
Antony, which works miracles still, and are preserved in a 
splendid chapel with immense brazen doors. Behind the main 
altar I saw a harrowing picture by Teipoli, of the martyrdom of 
St. Agatha. Her breasts are cut off, and lying in a dish. The 
expression in the face of the dying woman is painfully well done. 

Returning to the inn, we passed a magnificent palace on one 
of the squares, upon whose marble steps and column-bases, sat 
hundreds of brutish Austrian troops, smoking and laughing at the 



PETRARCH'S COTTAGE AND TOMB. 285 



passers-by. This is a sight you may see now through all Italy. The 
palaceo of the proudest nobles are turned into barracks for foreign 
troops, and there is scarce a noble old church or monastery that 
is not defiled with their filth. The Grerman soldiers are, without 
exception, the most stolid and disagreeable looking body of men 
I ever saw ; and they have little to soften the indignant feeling 
with which one sees them rioting in this lovely and oppressed 
country. 

We passed an hour before bedtime in the usual amusement of 
travellers in a foreign hotel — reading the traveller's record-book. 
Walter Scott's name was written there, and hundreds of distin- 
guished names besides. I was pleased to find, on a leaf far 
back, " Edward Everett," written in his own round legible hand. 
There were at least the names of fifty Americans within the dates 
of the year past — such a wandering nation we are. Foreigners 
express their astonishment always at their numbers in these 
cities. 

On the afternoon of the next day, we went to Arqua, on a 
pilgrimage to Petrarch's cottage and tomb. It was an Italian 
summer afternoon, and the Euganean hills were rising green and 
lovely, with the sun an hour high above them, and the yellow of 
the early sunset already commencing to glow about the horizon. 

We left the carriage at the " pellucid lake," and went into the 
hills a mile, plucking the ripe grapes which hung over the road 
in profusion. We were soon at the little village and the tomb, 
which stands just before the church door, " reared in air." The 
four laurels Byron mentions are dead. We passed up the hill to 
the poet's house, a rural stone cottage, commanding a lovely 
view of the campagna from the portico. Sixteen villages may be 
counted from the door, and the two large towns of Rovigo and 



286 PETRARCH'S ROOM. 



Ferrara are distinguishable in a clear atmosphere. It was a 
retreat fit for a poet. We went through the rooms, and saw the 
poet's cat, stuffed and exhibited behind a wire grating, his chair 
and desk, his portrait in fresco, and Laura's, and the small 
closet-like room where he died. It was an interesting visit, and 
we returned by the golden twilight of this heavenly climate, 
repeating Childe Harold, and wishing for his pen to describe 
afresh the scene about us. 



LETTER XL. 

excursion from venice to verona truth of byron's de- 
scription of italian scenery the lombardy peasantry 

appearance of the country manner of cultivating 

the vine on living trees the vintage another visit 

to juliet's tomb — the opera at verona — the prima 

donna roman amphitheatre bologna again — madame 

malibran in la gazza ladra cheap luxuries the 

palace of the lambaccari a magdalen of guido car- 

racci charles the second's beauties valley of the 

arno florence once more. 

Our gondola set us on shore at Fusina an hour or two before 
sunset, with a sky (such as we have had for five months) without 
a cloud, and the same promise of a golden sunset, to which I 
have now become so accustomed, that rain and a dark heaven 
would seem to me almost unnatural. It was the hour and the 
spot at which Childe Harold must have left Venice, and we look 
at the " blue Friuli mountains," the " deep-died Brenta," and 
the "Rhoetian hill," and feel the truth of his description as 
well as its beauty. The two banks of the Brenta are studded with 



288 CULTIVATION OF THE FIELDS. 



the palaces of the Venetian nobles for almost twenty miles, and 
the road runs close to the water on the northern side, following 
all its graceful windings, and, at every few yards, surprising the 
traveller with some fresh scene of cultivated beauty, church, 
palace, or garden, while the gondolas on the stream, and the fair 
" damas" of Italy sitting under the porticoes, enliven and brighten 
the picture. These people live out of doors, and the road was 
thronged with the contadini ; and here and there rolled by a car- 
riage, with servants in livery ; or a family of the better class on 
their evening walk, sauntered along at the Italian pace of indo- 
lence, and a finer or happier looking race of people would not 
easily be found. It is difficult to see the athletic frames and 
dark flashing eyes of the Lombardy peasantry-, and remember 
their degraded condition. You cannot believe it will remain 
so. If they think at all, they must, in time, feel too deeply to 
endure. 

The guide-book says, the " traveller wants words to express 
his sensations at the beauty of the country from Padua to 
Verona." Its beauty is owing to the perfection of a method of 
cultivation universal in Italy. The fields are divided into hand- 
some squares, by rows of elms or other forest trees, and the vines 
are trained upon these with all the elegance of holyday festoons, 
winding about the trunks, and hanging with their heavy clusters 
from one to the other, the foliage of vine and tree mingled so 
closely that it appears as if they sprung from the same root. 
Every square is perfectly enclosed with these fantastic walls of 
vine-leaves and grapes, and the imagination of a poet could con- 
ceive nothing more beautiful for a festival of Bacchus. The 
ground between is sown with grass or corn. The vines are lux- 
uriant always, and often send their tendrils into the air higher 



THE VINTAGE. 2 89 



than the topmost branch of the tree, and this extends the whole 
distance from Padua to Verona, with no interruption except the 
palaces and gardens of the nobles lying between. 

It was just the season for gathering and pressing the grape, 
and the romantic vineyards were full of the happy peasants, of 
all ages, mounting the ladders adventurously for the tall clusters, 
heaping the baskets and carts, driving in the stately gray oxen 
with their loads, and talking and singing as merrily as if it were 
Arcadia. Oh how beautiful these scenes are in Italy. The 
people are picturesque, the land is like the poetry of nature, 
the habits are all as they were described centuries ago, and as the 
still living pictures of the glorious old masters represent them. 
The most every-day traveller smiles and wonders, as he lets down 
his carriage windows to look at the vintage. 



We have been three or four days in Verona, visiting Juliet's 
tomb, and riding through the lovely environs. The opera here 
is excellent, and we went last night to see " Romeo and Juliet " 
performed in the city renowned by their story. The prima donna 
was one of those syrens found often in Italy — a young singer of 
great promise, with that daring brilliancy which practice and 
maturer science discipline, to my taste, too severely. It was 
like the wild, ungovernable trill of a bird, and my ear is not so 
nice yet, that I even would not rather feel a roughness in the 
harmony than lose it. Malibran delighted me more in America 
than in Paris. • 

The opera was over at twelve, and, as we emerged from the 

crowded lobby, the moon full, and as clear and soft as the eye of 
13 



290 MALIBRAN IN LA GAZZA LADRA. 



a child, burst through the arches of the portico. The theatre is 
opposite the celebrated Roman amphitheatre, and the wish to 
visit it by moonlight was expressed spontaneously by the whole 
party. The custode was roused, and we entered the vast arena 
and stood in the midst, with the gigantic ranges of stone seats 
towering up in a receding circle, as if to the very sky, and the 
lofty arches and echoing dens lying black and silent in the dead 
shadows of the moon. A hundred thousand people could sit here ; 
and it was in these arenas, scattered through the Roman prov- 
inces, that the bloody gladiator fights, and the massacre of 
Christians, and every scene of horror, amused the subjects of the 
mighty mistress of the world. You would never believe it, if you 
could have seen how peacefully the moonlight now sleeps on the 
moss-gathering walls, and with what untrimmed grace the vines 
and flowers creep and blossom on the rocky crevices of the 
windows. 

We arrived at Bologna just in time to get to the opera. Mali- 
bran in La Gazza Ladra was enough to make one forget more 
than the fatigue of a day's travel. She sings as well as ever 
and plays much better, though she had been ill, and looked thin. 
In the prison scene, she was ghastlier even than the character re- 
quired. There are few pleasures in Europe like such singing as 
hers, and the Italians, in their excellent operas, and the cheap 
rate at which they can be frequented, have a resource corres- 
ponding to everything else in their delightful country. Every 
comfort and luxury is better and cheaper in Italy than elsewhere, 
and it is a pity that he who can get his wine for .three cents a 
bottle, his dinner and his place at the opera for ten, and has 
lodgings for anything he chooses to pay, can not find leisure, and 
does not think it worth the trouble, to look about for means to be 



GALLERY OF THE LAMBACCARI. 291 



free. It is vexatious to see nature lavishing such blessings on 
slaves. 

The next morning we visited a palace, which, as it is not 
mentioned in the guide-books of travel, I had not before seen — 
the Lambaccari. It was full of glorious pictures, most of them 
for sale. Among others we were captivated with a Magdalen of 
unrivalled sweetness by Guido Carracci. It has been bought 
since by Mr. Cabot, of Boston, who passed through Bologna the 
day after, and will be sent to America, I am happy to say, 
immediately. There were also six of " Charles the Second's 
beauties,' — portraits of the celebrated women of that gay mon- 
arch's court, by Sir Peter Lely — ripe, glowing English women, 
more voluptuous than chary-looking, but pictures of exquisite 
workmanship. There were nine or ten apartments to this splen- 
did palace, all crowded with paintings by the first masters, and 
the surviving Lambaccari is said to be selling them one by one 
for bread. It is really melancholy to go through Italy, and see 
how her people are suffering, and her nobles starving under 
oppression. 

We crossed the Appenines in two of the finest days that ever 
shone, and decending through clouds and mist to the Tuscan 
frontier, entered the lovely valley of the Arno, sparkling in the 
sunshine, with all its palaces and spires, as beautiful as ever. I 
am at Florence once more, and parting fron the delightful party 
with whom I have travelled for two months. I start for Rome 
to-morrow, in company with five artists. 



LETTER XLI. 

journey to the eternal city two roads to rome sienna 

the public square an italian fair the cathedral 

the library the three grecian graces dandy officers 

public promenade landscape view long glen a 

waterfall a cultivated valley the town of aquapen- 

dente san lorenzo pliny's floating islands monte- 

fiascone viterbo procession of flower and dancing 

girls to the vintage ascent of the montecimino the 

road of thieves lake vico baccano mount soracte 

dome of st. peter's, etc. 

I left Florence in company with the five artists mentioned 
in my last letter, one of them an Englishman, and the other four 
pensioners of the royal academy at Madrid. The Spaniards had 
but just arrived in Italy, and could not speak a syllable of the 
language. The Englishman spoke everything but French, which 
he avoided learning from principle. He " hated a Frenchman !" 

There are two roads to Rome. One goes by Sienna, and is a 
day shorter ; the other by Perugia, the Falls of Terni, Lake 
Thrasj-mene, and the Clitumnus. Childe Harold took the latter, 



SIENNA. 293 



and his ten or twelve best cantos describe it. I was compelled 
to go by Sienna, and shall return, of course, by the other road. 

I was at Sienna on the following day. As the second capital 
of Tuscany, this should be a place of some interest, but an hour 
or two is more than enough to see all that is attractive. The 
public square was a gay scene. It was rather singularly situated, 
lying fifteen or twenty feet lower than the streets about it. I 
should think there were several thousand people in its area — all 
buying or selling, and vociferating, as usual, at the top of their 
voices. We heard the murmur, like the roar of the sea, in all 
the distant streets. There are few sights more picturesque than 
an Italian fair, and I strolled about in the crowd for an hour, 
amused with the fanciful costumes, and endeavoring to make out 
with the assistance of the eye, what rather distracted my unaccus- 
tomed ear — the cries of the various wandering venders of mer- 
chandise. The women, who were all from the country, were 
coarse, and looked well only at a distance. 

The cathedral is the great sight of Sienna. It has a rich 
exterior, encrusted with curiously wrought marbles, and the front, 
as far as I can judge, is jn beautiful taste. The pavement of the 
interior is very precious, and covered with a wooden platform, 
which is removed but once a year. The servitor raised a part of 
it, to show us the workmanship. It was like a drawing in India 
ink, quite as fine as if pencilled, and representing, as is custom- 
ary, some miracle of a saint. .< 

A massive iron door, made ingeniously to imitate a rope-netting, 
opens from the side of the church into the library. It contained 
some twenty volumes in black letter, bound with enormous clasps 
and placed upon inclined shelves. It would have been a task for 
a man of moderate strength to lift either of them from the floor. 



294 CATHOLIC DEVOTION. 



The little sacristan found great difficulty in only opening one to 
show us the letter. 

In the centre of the chapel on a high pedestal, stands the 
original antique group, so often copied, of the three Grecian 
Graces. It is shockingly mutilated ; but its original beauty is 
still in a great measure discernable. Three naked women are 
an odd ornament for the private chapel of a cathedral.* One 
often wonders, however, in Italian churches, whether his devotion 
is most called upon by the arts or the Deity. 

As we were leaving the church, four young officers passed us 
in gay uniform, their long steel scabbards rattling on the pave- 
ment, and their heavy tread disturbing visibly every person 
present. As I turned to look after them, with some remark on 
their coxcombry, they dropped on their knees at the bases of the 
tall pillars about the altar, and burying their faces in their 
caps, bowed their heads nearly to the floor, in attitudes of the 
deepest devotion. Sincere or not, Catholic worshippers of all 
classes seem absorbed in their religious duties. You can scarce 
withraw the attention even of a child in such places. In the six 
months that I have been in Italy, I never saw anything like 
irreverence within the church walls. 

The public promenade, on the edge of the hill upon which the 
town is beautifully situated, commands a noble view of the coun 
try about. The peculiar landscape of Italy lay before us in all 
its loveliness — the far-off hills lightly tinted with the divided 
colors of distance, the atmosphere between absolutely clear and 
invisible, and villages clustered about, each with its ancient castle 
on the hill-top above, just as it was settled in feudal times, and 

* I remember hearing a friend receive a severe reproof from one of the 
most enlightened men in our country, for offering his daughter an annual, 
upon the cover of which was an engraving of these same t: Graces." 



ACQUAPENDENTE. 295 



as painters and poets would imagine it. You never get a view 
in this " garden of the world" that would not excuse very 
extravagant description. 

Sienna is said to be the best place for learning the language. 
Just between Florence and Rome, it combines the " lingua 
Toscano," with the " bocca Romano" — the Roman pronunciation 
with the Florentine purity of language. It looks like a dull 
place, however, and I was very glad after dinner to resume my 
passport at the gate and get on. 

The next morning, after toiling up a considerable ascent, we 
suddenly rounded the shoulder of a mountain, and found ourselves 
at the edge of a long glen, walled up at one extremity by a preci- 
pice with an old town upon its brow, and a waterfall pouring off 
at its side, and opening away at the other into a broad, gently- 
sloped valley, cultivated like a garden as far as the eye could 
distinguish. I think I have seen an engraving of it in the 
Landscape Annual. Taken together, it is positively the most 
beautiful view I ever saw, from the road edge, as you wind up 
into the town of Acquapendente. The precipice might be a 
hundred feet, and from its immediate edge were built up the 
walls of the houses, so that a child at the window might throw 
its plaything into the bottom of the ravine. It is scarce a 
pistol-shot across the glen, and the two hills on either side lean 
off from the level of the town in one long soft declivity to the 
valley — the little river which pours off the rock at the very base 
of the church, fretting and fuming its way between to the meadows 
— its stony bed quite hidden by the thick vegetation of its banks. 
The bells were ringing to mass, and the echoes came back to us 
at long distances with every modulation. The streets, as we 
entered the town, were full of people hurrying to the churches ; 



296 LAKE B0LSENA. 



the women with their red shawls thrown about their heads, and 
the men with their immense dingy cloaks flung romantically over 
their shoulders, with a grace, one and all, that in a Parisian 
dandy, would be attributed to a consummate study of effect. For 
outline merely, I think there is nothing in costume which can 
surpass the closely-stockinged leg, heavy cloak, and slouched hat 
of an Italian peasant. It is added to by his indolent, and, con- 
sequently, graceful motion and attitudes. Johnson, in his book 
on the climate of Italy, says their sloth is induced by malaria. 
You will see a man watching goats or sheep, with his back 
against a rock, quite motionless for hours together. His dog 
feels, apparently, the same influence, and lies couched in his long 
white hair, with his eyes upon the flock, as lifeless, and almost as 
picturesque, as his master. 

The town of San Lorenzo is a handful of houses on the top of 
a hill which hangs over Lake Bolsena. You get the first view of 
the lake as you go out of the gate toward Rome, and descend 
immediately to its banks. There was a heavy mist upon the 
water, and we could not see across, but it looked like as quiet and 
pleasant a shore as might be found in the world — the woods wild, 
and of uncommonly rich foliage for Italy, and the slopes of the 
hills beautiful. Saving the road, and here and there a house with 
no sign of an inhabitant, there can scarcely be a lonelier wilder- 
ness in America. We stopped two hours at an inn on its banks, 
and whether it was the air, or the influence of the perfect still- 
ness about us, my companions went to sleep, and I could scarce 
resist my own drowsiness. 

The mist lifted a little from the lake after dinner, and we saw 
the two islands said by Pliny to have floated, in his time. They 
look like the tops of green hills rising from the water. 



VINTAGE FESTA. 097 



Tt is a beautiful country again as you approach Montefiascone. 
The scenery is finely broken up with glens formed by columns of 
basalt, giving it a look of great wildness. Montefiascone is 
fcuilt on the river of one of these ravines. We stopped here 
long enough to get a bottle of the wine for which the place is 
famous, drinking it to the memory of the " German prelate," 
who, as Madame Stark relates, " stopped here on his journey to 
Rome, and died of drinking it to excess." It has degenerated, 
probably, since his time, or we chanced upon a bad bottle. 

The walls of Viterbo are flanked with towers, and have a noble 

appearance from the hill-side on which the town stands. We 

arrived too late to see anything of the place. As we were taking 

coffee at the cafe the next morning, a half hour before daylight, 

we heard music in the street, and looking out at the door, we 

saw a long procession of young girls, dressed with flowers in their 

hair, and each playing a kind of cymbal, and half dancing as she 

went along. Three or four at the head of the procession sung a 

kind of verse, and the rest joined in a short merry chorus at 

intervals. It was more like a train of Corybantes than anything 

I had seen. We inquired the object of it, and were told it was a 

procession to the vintage. They were going out to pluck the last 

grapes, and it was the custom to make it a festa. It was a 

striking scene in the otherwise perfect darkness of the streets, the' 

torch-bearers at the sides waving their flambeaux regularly over 

their heads, and shouting with the rest in chorus. The measure 

was quick, and the step very fast. They were gone in an 

instant. The whole thing was poetical, and in keeping, for Italy. 

I have never seen it elsewhere. 

We left Viterbo on a clear, mild autumnal morning ; and I 

think I never felt the excitement of a delightful climate more 
13* 



298 MONTE-CIMINO. 



thrillingly. The road was wild, and with the long ascent of the 
Monte-Cimino before us, I left the carriage to its slow pace and 
went ahead several miles on foot. The first rain of the season 
had fallen, and the road was moist, and all the spicy herbs of 
Italy perceptible in the air. Half way up the mountain, I 
overtook a fat, bald, middle-aged priest, slowly toiling up on his 
mule. I was passing him with a ,c buon giornof > when he 
begged me for my own sake, as well as his, to keep him company. 
" It was the worst road for thieves," he said, " in all Italy," and 
he pointed at every short distance to little crosses erected at the 
road-side, to commemorate the finding of murdered men on the 
spot. After he had told me several stories of the kind, he 
elevated his tone, and began to talk of other matters. I think I 
never heard so loud and long a laugh as his. I ventured to 
express a wonder at his finding himself so happy in a life of 
celibacy. He looked at me slily a moment or two as if he were 
hesitating whether to trust me with his opinions on the subject ; 
but he suddenly seemed to remember his caution, and pointing 
off to the right, showed me a lake brought into view by the last 
turn of the road. It was Lake Vico. From the midst of it rose 
a round mountain covered to the top with luxuriant chestnuts — 
the lake forming a sort of trench about it, with the hill on which 
"we stood rising directly from the other edge. It was one faultless 
mirror of green leaves. The two hill sides shadowed it com- 
pletely. All the views from Monte-Cimino were among the 
richest in mere nature that I ever saw, and reminded me strongly 
of the country about the Seneca lake of America. I was on the 
Cayuga at about the same season three summers ago, and I could 
have believed "myself back again, it was so like my recollection. 
We stopped on the fourth night of our journey, seventeen 



FIRST SIGHT OF ROME. 299 



miles from Rome, at a place called Baccano. A ridge of hills 
rose just before us, from the top of which we were told, we could 
see St. Peter's. The sun was just dipping under the horizon, 
and the ascent was three miles. We threw off our cloaks, deter- 
mining to see Rome before we slept, ran unbreathed to the top 
of the hill, an effort which so nearly exhausted us, that we could 
scarce stand long enough upon our feet to search over the broad 
campagna for the dome. 

The sunset had lingered a great while — as it does in Italy. 
Four or five light feathery streaks of cloud glowed with intense 
crimson in the west, and on the brow of Mount Soracte, (which T 
recognised instantly from the graphic simile* of Childe Harold), 
and along on all the ridges of mountain in the east, still played 
a kind of vanishing reflection, half purple, half gray. With a 
moment's glance around to catch the outline of the landscape, I 
felt instinctively where Rome should stand, and my eye fell at 
once upon " the mighty dome." Jupiter had by this time 
appeared, and hung right over it, trembling in the sky with its 
peculiar glory, like a lump of molten spar, and as the color faded 
from the clouds, and the dark mass of " the eternal city" itself 
mingled and was lost in the shadows of the campagna, the dome 
still seemed to catch light, and tower visibly, as if the radiance 
of the glowing star above fell more directly upon it. We could 
see it till we could scarcely distinguish each other's features. 
The dead level of the campagna extended between and beyond 
for twenty miles, and it looked like a far-off beacon in a dim sea. 

* " A long swept wave about to break, 



And on the curl hangs pausing." 



300 BACCANO. 



We sat an hour on the summit of the hill, gazing into the 
increasing darkness, till our eyes ached. The stars brightened 
one by one, the mountains grew indistinct, and we rose unwillingly 
to retrace our steps to Baccano. 



LETTER XLII. 

FIRST DAY IN ROME SAINT PETER'S A SOLITARY MONK 

STRANGE MUSIC MICHAEL ANGELo's MASTERPIECE THE 

MUSEUM LIKENESS OF YOUNG AUGUSTUS APOLLO BELVIDERE 

THE MEDICEAN VENUS RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION 

THE PANTHEON THE BURIAL-PLACE OF CARRACCI AND 

RAPHAEL ROMAN FORUM TEMPLE OF FORTUNE THE ROS- 
TRUM PALACE OF THE CESARS THE RUINS THE COLISEUM, 

ETC. 

To be rid of the dust of travel, and abroad in a strange and 
renowned city, is a sensation of no slight pleasure anywhere. 
To step into the street under these circumstances and inquire for 
the Roman Forum, was a sufficient advance upon the ordinary 
feeling to mark a bright day in one's calendar. I was hurrying 
up the Corso with this object before me a half hour after my 
arrival in Rome, when an old friend arrested my steps, and 
begging me to reserve the " Ruins" for moonlight, took me off 
to St. Peter's. 

The facade of the church appears alone, as you walk up the 
street from the castle of St. Angelo. It disappointed me. 



302 ST - PETER'S. 



There is no portico, and it looks flat and bare. But approaching 
nearer, I stood at the base of the obelisk, and with those two 
magnificent fountains sending their musical waters, as if to the 
sky, and the two encircling wings of the church embracing the 
immense area with its triple colonnades, I felt the grandeur of 
St. Peter's. I felt it again in the gigantic and richly-wrought 
porches, and again with indescribable surprise and admiration at 
the first step on the pavement of the interior. There was not a 
figure on its immense floor from the door to the altar, and its far- 
off roof, its mighty pillars, its gold and marbles in such profusion 
that the eye shrinks from the examination, made their over- 
powering impression uninterrupted. You feel that it must be a 
glorious creature that could build such a temple to his Maker. 

An organ was playing brokenly in one of the distant chapeb, 
and, drawing insensibly to the music, we found the door half 
open, and a monk alone, running his fingers over the keys, and 
stopping sometimes as if to muse, till the echo died and the 
silence seemed to startle him anew. It was strange music ; very 
irregular, but sweet, and in a less excited moment, I could have 
sat and listened to it till the sun set. 

I strayed down the aisle, and stood before the " Dead Christ" 
of Michael Angelo. The Saviour lies in the arms of Mary. 
The limbs hang lifelessly down, and, exquisitely beautiful as they 
are, express death with a wonderful power. It is the best work 
of the artist, I think, and the only one I was ever moved in 
looking at. 

The greatest statue and the first picture in the world are under 
the same roof, and we mounted to the Vatican. The museum is 
a wilderness of statuary. Old Romans, men and women, stand 
about you, copied, as you feel when you look on them, from the 



THE APOLLO BELVIDERE. 



303 



life ; and conceptions of beauty in children, nymphs, and herces 
from minds that conceived beauty in a degree that has never been 
transcended, confuse and bewilder you with their number and 
wonderful workmanship. It is like seeing a vision of past ages. 
It is calling up from Athens and old classic Rome, all that was 
distinguished and admired of the most polished ages of the world. 
On the right of the long gallery, as you enter, stands the bust of 
the " Young Augustus"— a kind of beautiful, angelic likeness of 
Napoleon, as Napoleon might have been in his youth. It is a 
boy, but with a serene dignity about the forehead and lips, that 
makes him visibly a boy-emperor— born for his throne, and 
conscious of his right to it. There is nothing in marble more 
perfect, and I never saw anything which made me realize that the 
Romans of history and poetry were men — nothing which brought 
them so familiarly to my mind, as the feeling for beauty shown in 
this infantine bust. I would rather have it than all the gods and 
heroes of the Vatican. 

No cast gives you any idea worth having of the Apollo 
Belvidere. It is a god-like model of a man. The lightness and 
the elegance of the limbs ; the free, fiery, confident energy of the 
attitude ; the breathing, indignant nostril and lips ; the whole 
statue's mingled and equal grace and power, are, with all its 
truth to nature, beyond any conception I had formed of manly 
beauty. It spoils one's eye for common men to look at it. It 
stands there like a descended angel, with a splendor of form and 
an air of power, that makes one feel what he should have been, 
and mortifies him for what he is. Most women whom I have met 
in Europe, adore the Apollo as far the finest statue in the world, 
and most men say a§ much of the Medicean Venus. But, to my 
eye, the Venus, lovely as she is, compares with the Apollo as a 



304 RAPHAEL'S TRANSFIGURATION. 



mortal with an angel of light. The latter is incomparably the 
finest statue. If it were only for its face, it would transcend the 
other infinitely. The beauty of the Venus is only in the limbs 
and body. It is a faultless, and withal, modest representation of 
the flesh and blood beauty of a woman. The Apollo is all this, 
and has a soul. I have seen women that approached the Venus 
in form, and had finer faces — I never saw a man that was a 
shadow of the Apollo in either. It stands as it should, in a room 
by itself, and is thronged at all hours by female worshippers. 
They never tire of gazing at it ; and I should believe, from the 
open-mouthed wonder of those whom I met at its pedestal, that 
the story of the girl who pined and died for love of it, was neither 
improbable nor singular. 

Raphael's " Transfiguration" is agreed to be the finest picture 
in the world. I had made up my mind to the same opinion from 
the engravings of it, but was painfully disappointed in the picture. 
I looked at it from every corner of the room, and asked the 
custode three times if he was sure this was the original. The 
color offended my eye, blind as Raphael's name should make it, 
and I left the room with a sigh, and an unsettled faith in my own 
taste, that made me seriously unhappy. My complacency was 
restored a few hours after on hearing that the wonder was entirely 
in the drawing — the colors having quite changed with time. I 
bought the engraving immediately, which you have seen too often, 
of course, to need my commentary. The aerial lightness with 
which he has hung the figures of the Saviour and the apostles in 
the air, is a triumph of the pencil over the laws of nature, that 
seem to have required the power of the miracle itself. 

I lost myself in coming home, and following a priest's 
direction to the Corso, came unexpectedly upon the " Pantheon," 



THE PANTHEON. 305 



which I recognised at once. This wonder of architecture has no 
questionable beauty. A dunce would not need to be told that it 
was perfect. Its Corinthian columns fall on the eye with that 
sense of fulness that seems to answer an instinct of beauty in the 
very organ. One feels a fault or an excellence in architecturo 
long before he can give the feeling a name ; and I can see why, 
by Childe Harold and others, this heathen temple is called u the 
pride of Rome," though I cannot venture on a description. The 
faultless interior is now used as a church, and there lie Annibal 
Carracci and the divine Raphael — two names worthy of the 
place, and the last, of a shrine in every bosom capable of a 
conception of beauty. Glorious Raphael ! If there was no 
other relic in Rome, one would willingly become a pilgrim to his 
ashes. 

With my countryman and friend, Mr. Cleveland, I stood in 
the Roman forum by the light of a clear half moon. The soft 
silver rays poured in through the ruined columns of the Temple 
of Fortune and threw our shadows upon the bases of the tall 
shafts near the capitol, the remains, I believe, of the temple 
erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans. Impressive things they 
are, even without their name, standing tall and alone, with their 
broken capitals wreathed with ivy, and neither roof nor wall to 
support them, where they were placed by hands that have mould- 
ered for centuries. It is difficult to rally one's senses in such a 
place, and be awake coldly to the scene. We stood, as we sup- 
posed, in the Rostrum. The noble arch, still almost perfect, 
erected by the senate to Septiinius Severus, stood up clear and 
lofty beside us, the three matchless and lonely columns of the 
supposed temple of Jupiter Stator threw their shadows across 
the Forum below, the great arch, built at the conquest of Jerusa- 



306 THE FORUM. 



lem to Titus, was visible in the distance, and above them all, on 
the gentle ascent of the Palatine, stood the ruined palace of the 
Cesars, the sharp edges of the demolished walls breaking up 
through vines and ivy, and the mellow moon of Italy softening 
rock and foliage into one silver-edged mass of shadow. It seems 
as if the very genius of the picturesque had arranged these im- 
mortal ruins. If the heaps of fresh excavation were but over- 
grown with grass, no poet nor painter could better image out the 
Rome of his dream. It surpasses fancy. 

"We walked on, over fragments of marble columns turned up 
from the mould, and leaving the majestic arches of the Temple 
of Peace on our left, passed under the arch of Titus (so dreaded 
by the Jews), to the Coliseum. This too is magnificently ruined 
— broken in every part, and yet showing still the brave skeleton 
of what it was — its gigantic and triple walls, half encircling the 
silent area, and its rocky seats lifting one above the other amid 
weeds and ivy, and darkening the dens beneath, whence issued 
the gladiators, beasts, and Christian martyrs, to be sacrificed for 
the amusement of Rome. A sentinel paced at the gigantic arch- 
way, a capuchin monk, whose duty is to attend the small chapels 
built around the arena, walked up and down in his russet cowl 
and sandals, the moon broke through the clefts in the wall, and 
the whole place was buried in the silence of a wilderness, I 
have given you the features of the scene — I leave you to people 
it with your own thoughts. I dare not trust mine to a colder 
medium than poetry. 



LETTER XLIII. 

TIVOLI RUINS OF THE BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN FALLS OF TIVOLI 

CASCATELLI SUBJECT OF ONE OF COLE'S LANDSCAPES RUINS 

OF THE VILLAGE OF MEC^ENAS RUINED VILLA OF ADRIAN THE 

FORUM TEMPLE OF VESTA THE CLOACA MAXIMA THE RIVER 

JUTURNA, ETC. 

I have spent a day at Tivoli with Messrs. Auchmuty and 
Bissell, of our navy, and one or two others, forming quite an 
American party. We passed the ruins of the baths of Diocle- 
tian, with a heavy cloud over our heads ; but we were scarce 
through the gate, when the sun broke through, the rain swept off 
over Soracte, and the sky was clear till sunset. 

I have seen many finer falls than Tivoli ; that is, more water, 
and falling farther ; but I do not think there is so pretty a place 
in the world. A very dirty village, a dirtier hotel, and a 
cicerone all rags and ruffianism, are somewhat dampers to antici- 
pation. "We passed through a broken gate, and with a step, 
were in a glen of fairy-land ; the lightest and loveliest of antique 
temples on a crag above, a snowy waterfall of some hundred and 
fifty feet below, grottoes mossed to the mouth at the river's out- 
let, and all up and down the cleft valley vines twisted in the 



308 THE FALLS OF TIVOLL 



crevices of rock, and shrubbery hanging on every ledge, with a 
felicity of taste or nature, or both, that is uncommon even in 
Italy. The fall itself comes rushing down through a grotto to the 
face of the precipice, over which it leaps, and looks like a subter- 
ranean river just coming to light. Its bed is rough above, and it 
bursts forth from its cavern in dazzling foam, and falls in one sparry 
sheet to the gulf. The falls of Montmorenci are not unlike it. 

We descended to the bottom, and from the little terrace, wet 
by the spray, and dark with overhanging rocks, looked up the 
t€ cavern of Neptune," a deep passage, through which the divided 
river rushes to meet the fall in the gulf. Then remounting to 
the top, we took mules to make the three miles' circuit of the 
glen, and see what are called the CascateLli. 

No fairy-work could exceed the beauty of the little antique 
Sybil's temple perched on the top of the crag above the fall. As 
we rode round the other edge of the glen, it stood opposite us in 
all the beauty of its light and airy architecture ; a thing that 
might be borne, " like Loretto's chapel, through the air," and 
seem no miracle. 

A mile farther on I began to recognize the features of the 
scene, at a most lovely point of view. It was the subject of one 
of Cole's landscapes, which I had seen in Florence ; and I need 
not say to any one who knows the works of this admirable artist, 
that it was done with truth and taste.* The little town of Tivoli 

* On my way to Rome (near Radicofani, I think) , we passed an old man, 
whose picturesque figure, enveloped in his brown cloak and slouched hat. 
arrested the attention of all my companions. I had seen him before. From 
a five minutes' sketch in passing, Mr. Cole had made one of the most spirited 
heads I ever saw, admirably like, and worthy of Caravaggio.for force and 
expression. 



VILLA OF ADRIAN. 309 

hangs on a jutting lap of a mountain, on the side of the ravine 
opposite to your point of view. From beneath its walls, as if its 
foundations were laid upon a river's fountains, bursts foaming 
water in some thirty different falls ; and it seems to you as if the 
long declivities were that moment for the first time overflowed, 
for the currents go dashing under trees, and overleaping vines 
and shrubs, appearing and disappearing continually, till they 
all meet in the quiet bed of the river below. " It ivas made by 
Bernini," said the guide, as we stood gazing at it ; and, odd as 
this information sounded, while wondering at a spectacle worthy 
of the happiest accident of nature, it will explain the phenomena 
of the place to you — the artist having turned a mountain river 
from its course, and leading it under the town of Tivoli, threw it 
over the sides of the precipitous hill upon which it stands. One 
of the streams appears from beneath the ruins of the " Yilla of 
Mecaenas," which topples over a precipice just below the town, 
looking over the campagna toward Rome — a situation worthy of 
the patron of the poets. We rode through the immense subter- 
ranean arches, which formed its court, in ascending the mountain 
again to the town. 

Near Tivoli is the ruined villa of Adrian, where was found the 
Venus de Medicis, and some other of the wonders of antique art. 
The sun had set, however, and the long campagna of twenty 
miles lay between us and Home. We were compelled to leave it 
unseen. We entered the gates at nine o'clock, unrolled — • 
rather an unusual good fortune, we were told, for travellers 
after dark on that lonely waste. Perhaps our number deprived 
us of the romance. 



310 A RAMBLE BY MOONLIGHT. 



I left a crowded ball-room at midnight, wearied with a day at 
Tivoli, and oppressed with an atmosphere breathed by two hun- 
dred, dancing and card-playing, Romans and foreigners ; and 
with a step from the portico of the noble palace of our host, 
came into a broad beam of moonlight, that with the stillness and 
coolness of the night refreshed me at once, and banished all dis- 
position for sleep. A friend was with me, and I proposed a 
ramble among the ruins. 

The sentinel challenged us as we entered the Forum. The 
frequent robberies of romantic strangers in this lonely place have 
made a guard necessary, and they are now stationed from the 
Arch of Severus to the Coliseum. We passed an hour rambling 
among the ruins of the temples. Not a footstep was to be heard, 
nor a sound even from the near city ; and the tall columns, with 
their broken friezes and capitals, and the grand imperishable 
arches, stood up in the bright light of the moon, looking indeed 
like monuments of Rome. I am told they are less majestic by 
daylight. The rubbish and fresh earth injure the effect. But I 
have as yet seen them in the garb of moonlight only, and I shall 
carry this impression away. It is to me, now, all that my fancy 
hoped to find it — its temples and columns just enough in ruin to 
be affecting and beautiful. 

We went thence to the Temple of Yesta. It is shut up in the 
modern streets, ten or fifteen minutes walk from the Forum. 
• The picture of this perfect temple, and the beautiful purpose of 
its consecration, have been always prominent in my imaginary 
Rome. It is worthy of its association — an exquisite round tem- 
ple, with its simple circle of columns from the base to the roof, a 
faultless thing in proportion, and as light and floating to the eye 
as if the wind might lift it. It was no common place to stand 



THE CLOACA MAXIMA. 31 1 



beside, and recall the poetical truth and fiction of which it has 
been the scene — the vestal lamp cherished or neglected by its 
high-born votaries, their honors if pure, and their dreadful death 
if faithless. It needed not the heavenly moonlight that broke 
across its columns to make it a very shrine of fancy. 

My companion proposed a visit next to the Cloaca Maxima. 
A common sewer, after the Temple of Vesta, sounds like an ab- 
rupt transition ; but the arches beneath which we descended were 
touched by moonlight, and the vines and ivy crossed our path, 
and instead of a drain of filth, which the fame of its imperial 
builder would scarce have sweetened, a rapid stream leaped to 
the right, and disappeared jpin beneath the solid masonry, more 
like a wild brook plunging into a grotto than the thing one ex- 
pects to find it. The clear little river Juturna (on the banks of 
which Castor and Pollux watered their foaming horses, when 
bringing the news of victory to Rome), dashes now through the 
Cloaca Maxima ; and a fresher or purer spot, or waters with a 
more musical murmur, it has not been my fortune to see. We 
stopped over a broken column for a drink, and went home, 
refreshed, to bed. 



LETTER XLTV. 

MASS IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL THE CARDINALS THE " LAST 

JUDGMENT" THE POPE OF ROME THE " ADAM AND EVE" 

CHANTING OF THE PRIESTS FESTA AT THE CHURCH OF SAN 

CARLOS GREGORY THE SIXTEENTH, HIS EQUIPAGE, TRAIN, ETC. 

All the world goes to hear i mass in the Sistine chapel," and 
all travellers describe it. It occurs infrequently and is performed 
by the Pope. We were there to-day at ten, crowding at the door 
with hundreds of foreigners, mostly English, elbowed alternately 
by priests and ladies, and kept in order by the Swiss guards in 
their harlequin dresses and long pikes. We were admitted after 
an hour's pushing, and the guard retreated to the grated door, 
through which no woman is permitted to pass. Their gay bon- 
nets and feathers clustered behind the gilded bars, and we could 
admire them for once without the qualifying reflection that they 
were between us and the show. An hour more was occupied in 
the entrance, one by one, of some forty cardinals with their rust- 
ling silk trains supported by boys in purple. They passed the 
gate, their train bearers lifted their cassocks and helped them to 
kneel, a moment's prayer was mumbled, and they took their seats 
with the same servile assistance. Their attendants placed them- 



THE LAST JUDGMENT. 313 



selves at their feet, and, taking the prayer-books, the only use of 
which appeared to be to display their jewelled fingers, they looked 
over them at the faces behind the grating, and waited for his 
Holiness. 

The intervals of this memory, gave us time to study the fa- 
mous frescoes for which the Sistine chapel is renowned. The 
subject is the " Last Judgment." The Saviour sits in the midst, 
pronouncing the sentence, the. wicked plunging from his presence 
on the left hand, and the righteous ascending with the assistance 
of angels on the right. The artist had, of course, infinite scope 
for expression, and the fame of the fresco (which occupies the 
whole of the wall behind the altar) would seem to argue his 
success. The light is miserable, however, and incense or lamp- 
smoke, has obscured the colors, and one looks at it now with 
little pleasure. As well as I could see, the figure of the 
Saviour was more that of a tiler throwing down slates from the 
top of a house in some fear of falling, than the Judge of the world 
upon his throne. Some of the other parts are better, and one or 
two naked females figures might once have been beautiful, but 
one of the succeeding popes ordered them dressed, and they now 
flaunt at the judgment-seat in colored silks, obscuring both saints 
and sinners with their finery. There are some redeeming fres- 
coes, also by Michael Angelo, on the ceiling, among them 
" Adam and Eve," exquisitely done. 

The Pope entered by a door at the side of the altar. With 
him came a host of dignitaries and church servants, and, as he 
tottered round in front of the altar, to kneel, his cap was taken 
off and put on, his flowing robes lifted and spread, and he was 
treated in all respects, as if he were the Deity himself. In fact, 
the whole service was the worship, not of God, but of the Pope, 
14 



314 THE MUSIC. 



The cardinals came up, one by one, with their heads bowed, and 
knelt reverently to kiss his hand and the hem of his white satin 
dress ; his throne was higher than the altar, and ten times as 
gorgeous ; the incense was flung toward him, and his motions 
from one side of the chapel to the other, were attended with 
more ceremony and devotion than all the rest of the service 
together. The chanting commenced with his entrance, and this 
should have been to God alone, for it was like music from heaven. 
The choir was composed of priests, who sang from massive vol- 
umes bound in golden clasps, in a small side gallery. One stood 
by the book, turning the leaves as the chant proceeded, and 
keeping the measure, and the others clustered around with their 
hands clasped, their heads thrown back, and their eyes closed or 
fixed upon the turning leaves in such grouping and attitude as 
you see in pictures of angels singing in the clouds. I have heard 
wonderful music since I have been on the continent, and have 
received new ideas of the compass of the human voice, and its 
capacities for pathos and sweetness. But, after all the wonders 
of the opera, as it is learned to sing before kings and courts, the 
chanting of these priests transcended every conception in my 
mind of music. It was the human voice, cleared of all earthli- 
ness, and gushing through its organs with uncontrollable feeling 
and nature. The burden of the various parts returned continu- 
ally upon one or two simple notes, the deepest and sweetest in 
the octave for melody, and occasionally a single voice outran the 
choir in a passionate repetition of the air, which seemed less like 
musical contrivance, than an abandonment of soul and voice to a 
preternatural impulse of devotion. One writes nonsense in de- 
scribing such things, but there is no other way of conveying an 
idea of them. The subject is beyond the wildest superlatives. 



GREGORY THE SIXTEENTH. 315 



To-day we have again seen the Pope. It was a festa, and the 
church of San Carlos was the scene of the ceremonies. His 
Holiness came in the state-coach with six long-tailed black horses, 
and all his cardinals in their red and gold carriages in his train. 
The gaudy procession swept up to the steps, and the father of 
the church was taken upon the shoulders of his bearers in a chair 
of gold and crimson, and solemnly borne up the aisle, and de- 
posited within the railings of the altar, where homage was done 
to him by the cardinals as before, and the half-supernatural 
music of his choir awaited his motions. The church was half 
filled with soldiers armed to the teeth, and drawn up on either 
side, and his body-guard of Roman nobles, stood even within the 
railing of the altar, capped and motionless, conveying, as every- 
thing else does, the irresistible impression that it was the worship 
of the Pope, not of God. 

Gregory the sixteenth, is a small old man, with a large heavy 
nose, eyes buried in sluggish wrinkles, and a flushed, apoplectic 
complexion. He sits, or is borne about with his eyes shut, look- 
ing quite asleep, even his limbs hanging lifelessly. The gor- 
geous and heavy papal costumes only render him more insignifi- 
cant, and when he is borne about, buried in his deep chair, or 
lost in the corner of his huge black and gold pagoda of a carriage, 
it is difficult to look at him without a smile. Among his cardi- 
nals, however, there are magnificent heads, boldly marked, noble 
and scholarlike, and I may say, perhaps, that there is no one of 
them, who had not nature's mark upon him of superiority. 
They are a dignified and impressive body of men, and their ser- 
vile homage to the Pope, seems unnatural and disgusting. 



LETTER XLV. 

ROME A MORNING IN THE STUDIO OF THORWALDSEN COLOSSAL 

STATUE OF THE SAVIOUR STATUE OF BYRON GIBSON'S ROOMS 

CUPID AND PSYCHE HYLAS WITH THE RIVER NYMPHS PALAZZO 

SPADA STATUE OF POMPEY BORGHESE PALACE PORTRAIT OF 

CESAR BORGIA DOSSl's PSYCHE SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE . 

ROOM DEVOTED TO VENUSES THE SOCIETY OF ROME, ETC. 

I have spent a morning in the studio of Tkorwaldsen. He 
is probably the greatest sculptor now living. A colossal statue 
of Christ, thought by many to be his masterpiece, is the promi- 
nent object as you enter. It is a noble conception — the mild 
majesty of a Saviour expressed in a face of the most dignified 
human beauty. Perhaps his full-length statue of Byron is infe- 
rior to some of his other works, but it interested me, and I spent 
most of my time in looking at it. It was taken from life ; and 
my friend, Mr. Auchmuty, who was with me, and who had seen 
Byron frequently on board one of our ships-of-war at Leghorn, 
thought it the only faithful likeness he had ever seen. The poet 
is dressed oddly enough, in a morning frock coat, cravat, panta- 
loons, and shoes ; and, unpromising as these materials would 
seem, the statue is classic and elegant to a very high degree. 



BYRON'S STATUE. 317 



His coat is held by the two centre buttons in front (a more ex- 
quisite cut never came from the hands of a London tailor), 
swelled out a little above and below by the fleshy roundness of 
his figure ; his cravat is tied loosely, leaving his throat bare 
(which, by the way, both in the statue and the original, was very 
beautifully chiselled) ; and he sits upon a fragment of a column, 
with a book in one hand and a pencil in the other. A man 
reading a pleasant poem among the ruins of Rome, and looking 
up to reflect upon a fine passage before marking it, would assume 
the attitude and expression exactly. The face has half a smile 
upon it, and, differing from the Apollo faces usually drawn for 
Byron, is finer, and more expressive of his character than any I 
ever met with. . Thorwaldsen is a Dane, and* is beloved by every 
one for his simplicity and modesty. I did not see him. 

We were afterward at Gibsons rooms. This gentleman is an 
English artist, apparently about thirty, and full of genius. He 
has taken some portraits which are esteemed admirable ; but his 
principal labor has been thrown upon the most beautiful fables 
of antiquity. His various groups and bas-reliefs of Cupid and 
Psyche are worthy of the beauty of the story. His chef d*(mvre, 
I think, is a group of three figures, representing the boy, " Hylas 
with the river nymphs." He stands between them with the 
pitcher in his hand, startled with their touch, and listening to 
their persuasions. The smaller of the two female figures is an 
almost matchless conception of loveliness. Gibson went round 
with us kindly, and I was delighted with his modesty of manner, 
and the apparently completely poetical character of his mind. 
He has a noble head, a lofty forehead well marked, and a mouth 
of finely mingled strength and mildness. 



318 THE BORGHESE PALACE. 



We devoted this morning to palaces. At the Palazzo Spada 
we saw the statue of Pompey, at the base of which Cesar fell. 
Antiquaries dispute its authenticity, but the evidence is quite 
strong enough for a poetical belief ; and if it were not, one's time 
is not lost, for the statue is a majestic thing, and well worth the 
long walk necessary to see it. The mutilated arm, and the hole 
in the wall behind, remind one of the ludicrous fantasy of the 
French, who carried it to the Forum to enact " Brutus" at its 
base. 

The Borghese Palace is rich in pictures. The portrait of Cesar 
Borgia, by Titian, is one of the most striking. It represents 
that accomplished villain with rather slight features, and, barring 
a look of cool determination about his well-formed lips, with 
rather a prepossessing countenance. One detects in it the 
capabilities of such a character as his, after the original is 
mentioned ; but otherwise he might pass for a handsome gallant, 
of no more dangerous trait than a fiery temper. Just beyond it 
is a very strong contrast in a figure of Psyche, by Dossi, of 
Ferrara. She is coming on tiptoe, with the lamp, to see her 
lover. The Cupid asleep is not so well done ; but for an image 
of a real woman, unexaggerated and lovely, I have seen nothing 
which pleases me better than this Psyche. Opposite it hangs a 
very celebrated Titian, representing " Sacred and Profane Love." 
Two female figures are sitting by a well — one quite nude, with 
her hair about her shoulders, and the other dressed, and coiffed a 
la mode, but looking less modest to my eye than her undraped 
sister. It is little wonder, however, that a man who could paint 
his own daughter in the embraces of a satyr (a revolting picture, 
which I saw in the Barberigo palace at Venice) should fail in 



SOCIETY OF ROME. 319 



drawing the face of Virtue. The coloring of the picture is 
exquisite, but the design is certainly a failure. 

The last room in the palace is devoted to Venuses — all very- 
naked and very bad. There might be forty, I think, and not a 
limb among them that one's eye would rest upon with the least 
pleasure for a single moment. 

The society of Rome is of course changing continually. At 
this particular season, strangers from every part of the continent 
are beginning to arrive, and it promises to be pleasant. I have 
been at most of the parties during the fortnight that I have been 
here, but find them thronged with priests, and with only the 
resident society which is dull. Cards and conversation with 
people one never saw before, and will certainly never see again, 
are heavy pastimes. I start for Florence to-morrow, and shall 
return to Rome for Holy Week, and the spring months. 



LETTER XLVI. 

ITALIAN AND AMERICAN SKIES FALLS OF TERNI THE CLITUM- 

NUS THE TEMPLE EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE AT FOLIGNO 

LAKE THRASIMENE JOURNEY FROM ROME FLORENCE 

FLORENTINE SCENERY PRINCE PONIATOWSKI JEROME BONA- 
PARTE AND FAMILY WANT OF A MINISTER IN ITALY. 

I left Rome by the magnificent " Porta del Popolo," as the 
flush of a pearly and spotless Italian sunrise deepened over 
Soracte. They are so splendid without clouds — these skies of 
Italy ! so deep to the eye, so radiantly clear ! Clouds make the 
glory of an American sky. The " Indian summer" sunsets 
excepted, our sun goes down in New England, with the extra- 
vagance of a theatrical scene. The clouds are massed and 
heavy, like piles of gold and fire, and day after day, if you 
observe them, you are literally astonished with the brilliant 
phenomena of the west. Here, for seven months, we have had 
no rain. The sun has risen faultlessly clear, with the same gray, 
and silver, and rose tints succeeding each other as regularly as 
the colors in a turning prism, and it has set as constantly in 
orange, gold, and purple, with scarce the variation of a painter's 



THE CLIMATE. 321 



pallet, from one day to another. It is really most delightful to live 
under such heavens as these ; to be depressed never by a gloomy 
sky, nor ill from a chance exposure to a chill wind, nor out ot 
humor because the rain or damp keeps you a prisoner at home. 
You feel the delicious climate in a thousand ways. It is a 
positive blessing, and were worth more than a fortune, if it were 
bought and sold. I would rather be poor in Italy, than rich in 
any other country in the world. 

We ascended the mountain that shuts in the campagna on the 
north, and turned, while the horses breathed, to take a last look 
at Rome. My two friends, the lieutenants, and myself, occupied 
the interior of the vetturino, in company with a young Roman 
woman, who was making her first journey from home. She was 
going to see her husband. I pointed out of the window to the 
distant dome of St. Peter's, rising above the thin smoke hung 
over the city, and she looked at it with the tears streaming fro m 
her large black eyes in torrents. She might have cried because 
she was going to her husband, but I could not divest myself of 
the fact that she was a Roman, and leaving a home that could be 
very romantically wept for. She was a fine specimen of this finest 
of the races of woman — amply proportioned without grossness, 
and with that certain presence or dignity that rises above manners 
and rank, common to them all. 

We saw beautiful scenery at Narni. The town stands on the 

edge of a precipice, and the valley, a hundred feet or two below, 

is coursed by a wild stream, that goes foaming along its bed in a 

long line of froth for miles away. We dined here, and drove 

afterward to Terni, where the voiturier stopped for the night, to 

give us an opportunity to see the Falls. 

We drove to the mountain base, three miles, in an old post 
14* 



322 FALLS OF TERNI. 



barouche, and made the ascent on foot. A line of precipices 
extends along from the summit, and from the third or fourth of 
these leaps the Velino, clear into the valley. We saw it in 
front as we went on, and then followed the road round, till we 
reached the bed of the river behind. The fountain of Egeria is 
not more secludedly beautiful than its current above the fall. 
Trees overhang and meet, and flowers spring in wonderful variety 
on its banks, and the ripple against the roots is heard amid the 
roar of the cataract, like a sweet, clear voice in a chorus. It is a 
place in which you half expect to startle a fawn, it looks so 
unvisited and wild. We wound out through the shrubbery, and 
gained a projecting point, from which we could see the sheet of 
the cascade. It is "horribly beautiful" to be sure. Childe 
Harold's description of it is as true as a drawing. 

I should think the quantity of water at Niagara would make 
five hundred such falls as those of Terni, without exaggeration. 
It is a " hell of waters," however, notwithstanding, and leaps 
over with a current all turned into foam by the roughness of its 
bed above — a circumstance that gives the sheet more richness of 
surface. Two or three lovely little streams steal off on either 
side of the fall, as if they shrunk from the leap, and drop down, 
from rock to rock, till they are lost in the rising mist. 

The sun set over the little town of Terni, while we stood 
silently looking down into the gulf, and the wet spray reminded 
us that the most romantic people may take cold. We descended 
to our carriage ; and in an hour were sitting around the blazing 
fire at the post-house, with a motley group of Germans, Swiss, 
French, and Italians — a mixture of company universal in the 
pulibc room of an Italian albergo, at night. The coming and 
going vetturini stop at the same houses throughout, and the 



THE CLITUMNUS. 323 



concourse is always amusing. We sat till the fire burned low, 
and then wishing our chance friends a happy night, had the 
" priests"* taken from our beds, and were soon lost to everything 
but sleep. , 

Terni was the Italian Tempe, and its beautiful scenery was 
shown to Cicero, whose excursion hither is recorded. It is part 
of a long, deep valley, between abrupt ranges of mountains, and 
abounds in loveliness. 

We went to Spoleto, the next morning, to breakfast. It is a 
very old town, oddly built, and one of its gates still remains, at 
which Hannibal was repulsed after his victory at Thrasimene. 
It bears his name in time-worn letters. 

At the distance of one post from Spoleto we came to the 
Clitumnus, a small stream, still, deep, and glassy — the clearest 
water I ever saw. It looks almost like air. On its bank, facing 
away from the road, stands the temple, " of small and delicate 
proportions," mentioned so exquisitely by Childe Harold. 

The temple of the Clitumnus might stand in a drawing-room. 
The stream is a mere brook, and this little marble gem, whose 
richly fretted columns were raised to its honor with a feeling of 
beauty that makes one thrill, seems exactly of relative propor- 
tions. It is a thing of pure poetry ; and to find an antiquity of 
such perfect preservation, with the small clear stream running 
still at the base of its fagade, just as it did when Cicero and his 
contemporaries passed it on their visits to a country called after 

* The name of a wooden frame by which a pot of coals is hung between 
the sheets of a bed in Italy. 



324 A LESSON NOT LOST. 



the loveliest vale of Greece for its beauty, was a gratification of 
the highest demand of taste. Childe Harold's lesson, 

u Pass not unblest the genius of the place" 

was scarce necessary. * 

We slept at Foligno. For many miles we had observed that 
the houses were propped in every direction, many of them in 
ruins apparently recent, and small wooden sheds erected in the 
midst of the squares, or beside the roads, and crowded with the 
poor. The next morning we arrived at St. Angelo, and found its 
gigantic cathedral a heap of ruins. Its painted chapels, to the 
number of fifteen or sixteen, were half standing in the shattered 
walls, the altars all exposed, and the interior of the dome one 
mass of stone and rubbish. It was the first time I had seen the 
effects of an earthquake. For eight or ten miles further, we 
found every house cracked and deserted, and the people living 
like the settlers in a new country, half in the open air. The 
beggars were innumerable. 

We stopped the next night on the shores of lake Thrasimene. 
For once in my life, I felt that the time spent at school on the 
" dull drilled lesson," had not been wasted. I was on the battle 
ground of Hannibal — the " loaos ajptus insidiis" where the consul 
Flaminius was snared and beaten by the wily Carthaginian on his 
march to Rome, I longed for my old copy of Livy "much 

* As if everything should be poetical on the shores of the Clitumnus, the 
beggars ran after us in quartettes, singing a chaunt, and sustaining the four 
parts as they ran. Every child sings well in Italy : and I have heard worse 
music in a church anthem, than was made by these half-clothed and home- 
less wretches, running at full speed by the carriage-wheels. I have never 
rnet th« same thing elsewhere. 



THRASIMENE. 325 



thumbed," that I might sit on the hill and compare the image in 
my mind, made by his pithy and sententious description, with the 
reality. 

The battle ground, the scene of the principal slaughter, was 
beyond the albergo, and the increasing darkness compelled us to 
defer a visit to it till the next morning. Meantime the lake was 
beautiful. We were on the eastern side, and the deep-red sky of 
a departed sunset over the other shore, was reflected glowingly 
on the water. All around was dark, but the light in the sky and 
lake seemed to have forgotten to follow. It is a phenomenon 
peculiar to Italy. The heavens seem " dyed" and steeped in the 
glory of the sunset. 

We drank our host's best bottle of wine, the grape plucked 
from the battle ground ; and if it was not better for the Roman 
blood that had manured its ancestor, it was better for some other 
reason. 

Early the next morning we were on our way, and wound down 
into the narrow pass between the lake and the hill, as the sun 
rose. We crossed the Sanguinetto y a little stream which took its 
name from the battle. The principal slaughter was just on its 
banks, and the hills are so steep above it, that everybody who 
fell near must have rolled into its bed. It crawls on very quietly 
across the road, its clear stream scarce interrupted by the wheels 
of the vetturino, which in crossing it, passes from the Roman 
states into Tuscany. I ran a little up the stream, knelt and 
drank at a small gurgling fall. The blood of the old Flaminian 
Cohort spoiled very delicious water, when it mingled with that 
brook. 

We were six days and a half accomplishing the hundred and 
eighty miles from Rome to Florence — slow travelling — bnt not 



326 FLORENCE. 



too slow io Italy, where every stone has its story, and every 
ascent of a hill its twenty matchless pictures, sprinkled with 
ruins, as a painter's eye could not imagine them. We looked 
down on the Eden-like valley of the Arno at sunrise, and again 
my heart leaped to see the tall dome of Florence, and the hills 
all about the queenly city, sparkling with palaces and bright in a 
sun that shines nowhere so kindly. If there is a spot in the 
world that could wean one from his native home, it is Florence ! 
"Florence the fair," they call her ! I have passed four of the 
seven months I have been in Italy, here — and I think I shall pass 
here as great a proportion of the rest of my life. There is nothing 
that can contribute to comfort and pleasure, that is not within the 
reach of the smallest means in Florence. I never saw a place 
where wealth made less distinction. The choicest galleries of art 
in the world, are open to all comers. The palace of the monarch 
may be entered and visited, and enjoyed by all. The ducal 
gardens of the Boboli, rich in everything that can refine nature, 
and commanding views that no land can equal, cooled by 
fountains, haunted in every grove by statuary, are the property 
of the stranger and the citizen alike. Museums, laboratories, 
libraries, grounds, palaces, are all free as Utopia. You may 
take any pleasure that others can command, and have any means 
of instruction, as free as the common air. Where else would 
one live so pleasantly — so profitably — so wisely. 

The society of Florence is of a very fascinating description. 
The Florentine nobles have a casino, or club-house, to which 
most of the respectable strangers are invited, and balls are given 
there once a week, frequently by the duke and his court, and the 
best society of the place. I attended one on my first arrival 
from Rome, at which I saw a proportion of beauty which aston- 



FLORENTINE WOMEN. 327 



ished me. The female descendants of the great names in Italian 
history, seem to me to have almost without exception the mark 
of noble beauty by nature. The loveliest woman in Florence is 
a Medici. The two daughters of Capponi, the patriot and the 
descendant of patriots, are of the finest order of beauty. I could 
instance many others, the mention of whose names, when T have 
first seen them, has made my blood start. I think if Italy is 
ever to be redeemed, she must owe it to her daughters. The 
men, the brothers of these women, with very rare exceptions, look 
like the slaves they are, from one end of Italy to the other. 

One of the most hospitable houses here, is that of Prince Pon- 
iatowski, the brother of the hero of Poland. He has a large 
family, and his soirees are thronged with all that is fair and 
distinguished. He is a venerable, grayheaded old man, of per- 
haps seventy, very fond of speaking English, of which rare acqui- 
sition abroad he seems a little vain. He gave me the heartiest 
welcome as an American, and said he loved the nation. 

I had the honor of dining, a day or two since, with the Ex-King 
of Westphalia, Jerome Bonaparte. He lives here with the title 
of Prince Montfort, conferred on him by his father-in-law, the 
king of Wurtemburg. Americans are well received at this house 
also ; and his queen, as the prince still calls her, can never say 
enough in praise of the family of Mr. H., our former secretary of 
legation at Paris. It is a constantly recurring theme, and ends 
always with " Paine beaucoup les Americains." The prince 
resembles his brother, but has a milder face, and his mouth is less 
firm and less beautiful than Napoleon's. His second son is most 
remarkably like the emperor. He is about ten years of age ; but 
except his youth, you can detect no difference between his head 
and the busts of his uncle. He has a daughter of about twelve, 



328 NEED OF AN AMBASSADOR. 



and an elder son at the university of Sienna. His family is large 
as his queen still keeps up her state, with the ladies of honor and 
suite. He never goes out, but his house is open every night, and 
the best society of Florence may be met there almost at the prima 
sera, or early part of the evening. 

The Grand Duke is about to be married, and the court is to be 
unusually gay in the carnival. Our countryman, Mr. Thorn, was 
presented some time since, and I am to have that honor in two 
or three days. By the way, we feel exceedingly in Italy the 
want of a minister. There is no accredited agent of our govern- 
ment in Tuscany, and there are rarely less than three hundred 
Americans within its dominions. Fortunately the Marquis Corsi, 
the grand chamberlain of the duke, offers to act in the capacity 
of an ambassador, and neglects nothing for our advantage in such 
matters, but he never fails to express his regret that we should 
not have some charge d J affaires at his court. We have officers 
in many parts of the world where they are much less needed. 



LETTER XLVII. 

FLORENCE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY THE GRAND CHAMBER- 
LAIN PRINCE DE LIGNE THE AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR 

THE MARQUIS TORRIGIANI LEOPOLD OF TUSCANY VIEWS 

OF THE VAL D'ARNO SPLENDID BALL TREES OF CANDLES 

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS HIGHBORN ITALIAN AND ENGLISH 

BEAUTIES, ETC., ETC. 

I was presented to the grand Duke of Tuscany yesterday 
morning, at a private audience. As we have no minister at this 
court, I drove alone to the ducal palace, and, passing through 
the body-guard of young nobles, was met at the door of the ante- 
chamber by the Marquis Corsi, the grand chamberlain. Around 
a blazing fire, in this room, stood five or six persons, in splendid 
uniforms, to whom I was introduced on entering. One was the 
Prince de Ligne — traveling at present in Italy, and waiting to be 
presented by the Austrian ambassador — a young and remarkably 
handsome man of twenty-five. He showed a knowledge of Amer- 
ica, in the course of a half hour's conversation, which rather 
surprised me, inquiring particularly about the residences and con- 
dition of the United States' ministers whom he had met at the 



330 CHAT IN THE ANTE-CHAMBER. 



various courts of Europe. The Austrian ambassador, an old, 
wily-looking man, covered with orders, joined in the conversation 
and asked after our former minister at Paris, Mr. Brown, remark- 
ing that he had done the United States great credit, during his 
embassy. He had known Mr. Gallatin also, and spoke highly of 
him. Mr. Van Buren's election to the vice-presidency, after his 
recall, seemed greatly to surprise him. 

The Prince was summoned to the presence of the Duke, and I 
remained some fifteeen minutes in conversation with a venerable 
and noble-looking man, the Marquis Torrigiani, one of the cham- 
berlains. His eldest son has lately gone upon his travels in the 
United States, in company with Mr. Thorn, an American gentle- 
man living in Florence. He seemed to think the voyage a great 
undertaking. Torrigiani is one of the oldest of the Florentine 
nobles, and his family is in high esteem. 

As the Austrian minister came out, the Grand Chamberlain 
came for me, and I entered the presence of the Duke. He was 
standing quite alone in a small, plain room, dressed in a simple 
white uniform, with a star upon his breast — a slender, pale, 
scholar-like looking young man, of perhaps thirty years. He 
received me with a pleasant smile, and crossing his hands behind 
him, came close to me, and commenced questioning me about 
America. The departure of young Torrigiani for the United 
States pleased him, and he said he should like to go himself — 
u but, 1 ' said he, " a voyage of three thousand miles and back — 
comment fair e /" and he threw out his hands with a look of mock 
despair that was very expressive. He assured me he felt great 
pleasure at Mr. Thorn's having taken up his residence in Florence. 
He had sent for his whole family a few days before, and promised 
them every attention to their comfort during the absence of Mr. 



LOVE IN HIGH LIFE. 331 



Thorn. He said young Torrigiani was lien instruit, and would 
travel to advantage, without doubt. At every pause of his in- 
quiries, he looked me full in the eyes, and seemed anxious to 
yield me the parole and listen. He bowed with a smile, after I 
had been with him perhaps half an hour, and I took my leave 
with all the impressions of his character which common report 
had given me, quite confirmed. He is said to be the best mon- 
arch in Europe, and it is written most expressively in his mild, 
amiable features. 

The Duke is very unwilling to marry again, although the crown 
passes from his family if he die without a male heir. He has 
two daughters, lovely children, between five and seven, whose 
mother died not quite a year since. She was unusually beloved, 
both by her husband and his subjects, and is still talked of by the 
people, and never without the deepest regret. She was very 
religious, and is said to have died of a cold taken in doing a 
severe penance. The Duke watched with her day and night, till 
she died ; and I was told by the old Chamberlain, that he cannot 
yet speak of her without tears. 

With the new year, the Grand Duke of Tuscany threw off his 
mourning. Not from his countenance, for the sadness of that is 
habitual ; but his equipages have laid off their black trappings, 
his grooms and outriders are in drab and gold, and, more impor- 
tant to us strangers in his capital, the ducal palace is aired with 
a weekly reception and ball, as splendid and hospitable as money 
and taste can make them. 

Leopold of Tuscany is said to be the richest individual in 
Europe. The Palazzo Pitti, in which he lives, seems to confirm 
it. The exterior is marked with the character of the times in 
which it was built, and might be that of a fortress — its long, dark 



332 BALL AT THE PALAZZO PITTI. 



front of roughly-hewn stone, with its two slight, out-curving 
wings, bearing a look of more strength than beauty. The inte- 
rior is incalculably rich. The suite of halls on the front side is 
the home of the choicest and most extensive gallery of pictures 
in the world. The tables of inlaid gems and mosaic, the walls 
encrusted with relievos, the curious floors, the drapery — all 
satiate the eye with sumptuousness. It is built against a hill, 
and I was surprised, on the night of the ball, to find myself 
alighting from the carriage upon the same floor to which I had 
mounted from the front by tediously long staircases. The Duke 
thus rides in his carriage to his upper story — an advantage which 
saves him no little fatigue and exposure. The gardens of the 
Boboli, which cover the hill behind, rise far above the turrets of 
the palace, and command glorious views of the Val d'Arno. 

The reception hour at the ball was from eight to nine. We were 
received at the steps on the garden side of the palace, by a crowd 
of servants, in livery, under the orders of a fat major-domo, and 
passing through a long gallery, lined with exotics and grenadiers, 
we arrived at the anteroom, where the Duke's body-guard of 
nobles were drawn up in attendance. The band was playing de- 
lightfully in the saloon beyond. I had arrived late, having been 
presented a few days before, and desirous of avoiding the stiffness 
of the first hour of presentation. The rooms were in a blaze of 
light from eight trees of candles, cypress-shaped, and reaching 
from the floor to the ceiling, and the company entirely assembled, 
crowded them with a dazzling show of jewels, flowers, feathers, 
and uniforms. 

The Duke and the Grand Duchess (the widow of the late 
Duke) stood in the centre of the room, and in the pauses of con- 
versation, the different ambassadors presented their countrymen. 



THE GRAND DUKE. 333 



His highness was dressed in a suit of plain black, probably the 
worst made clothes in Florence. With his pale, timid face, his 
bent shoulders, an inexpressibly ill-tied cravat, and rank, untrim- 
med whiskers, he was the most uncourtly person present. His 
extreme popularity as a monarch is certainly very independent 
of his personal address. His mother-in-law is about his own age, 
with marked features, full of talent, a pale, high forehead, and 
the bearing altogether of a queen. She wore a small diadem of 
the purest diamonds, and with her height and her flashing jewels, 
she was conspicuous from every part of the room. She is a high 
Catholic, and is said to be bending all her powers upon the re-es- 
tablishment of the Jesuits in Florence. 

As soon as the presentations were over, the Grand Duke led 
out the wife of the English ambassador, and opened the ball with 
a waltz. He then danced a quadrille with the wife of the French 
ambassador, and for his next partner selected an American lady 
— the daughter of Colonel T , of New York. 

The supper rooms were opened early, and among the delicacies 
of a table loaded with everything rare and luxurious, were a brace 
or two of pheasants from the Duke's estates in Germany. Duly 
flavored with truffles, and accompanied with Rhine wines, which 
deserved the conspicuous place given them upon the royal table 
— and in this letter. 

I hardly dare speak of the degree of beauty in the assembly ; 
it is so difficult to compare a new impression with an old one, 
and the thing itself is so indefinite. But there were two persons 
present whose extreme loveliness, as it is not disputed even by 
admiring envy, may be worth describing, for the sake of the 
comparison. 

The Princess S may be twenty-four years of age. She is 



334 AN ITALIAN BEAUTY. 



of the middle height, with the slight stoop in her shoulders, 
which is rather a grace than a fault. Her bust is exquisitely 
turned, her neck slender but full, her arms, hands, and feet, 
those of a Psyche. Her face is the abstraction of highborn 
Italian beauty — calm, almost to indifference, of an indescribably 
glowing paleness — a complexion that would be alabaster if it 
were not for the richness of the blood beneath, betrayed in lips 
whose depth of color and fineness of curve seem only too curi- 
ously beautiful to be the work of nature. Her eyes are dark and 
large, and must have had an indolent expression in her childhood, 
but are now the very seat and soul of feeling. A constant trace 
of pain mars the beauty of her forehead. She dresses her hair 
with a kind of characteristic departure from the mode, parting 
its glossy flakes on her brow with nymph-like simplicity, a pecu- 
liarity which one regrets not to see in the too Parisian dress of 
her person. In her manner she is strikingly elegant, but without 
being absent, she seems to give an unconscious attention to what 
is about her, and to be gracious and winning without knowing or 
intending it, merely because she could not listen or speak other- 
wise. Her voice is sweet, and, in her own Italian, mellow and 
soft to a degree inconceivable by those who have not heard this 
delicious language spoken in its native land. With all these ad- 
vantages, and a look of pride that nothing could insult, there is 
an expression in her beautiful face that reminds you of her sex 
and its temptations, and prepares you fully for the history which 
you may hear from the first woman that stands at your elbow. 

The other is that English girl of seventeen, shrinking timidly 
from the crowd, and leaning with her hands clasped over her 
father's arm, apparently listening only to the waltz, and uncon- 
scious that every eye is fixed upon her in admiration. She has 



AN ENGLISH BEAUTY. 335 



lived all her life in Italy, but has been bred by an English 
mother, in a retired villa of the Val d'Arno — her character and 
feelings are those of her race, and nothing of Italy about her, but 
the glow of its sunny clime in the else spotless snow of her com- 
plexion, and an enthusiasm in her downcast eye that you may 
account for as you will — it is not English ! Her form has just 
ripened into womanhood. The bust still wants fullness, and the 
step confidence. Her forehead is rather too intellectual to be 
maidenly ; but the droop of her singularly long eye-lashes over 
eyes that elude the most guarded glance of your own, and the 
modest expression of her lips closed but not pressed together, 
redeem her from any look of conscious superiority, and convince 
you that she only seeks to be unobserved. A single ringlet of 
golden brown hair falls nearly to her shoulder, catching the light 
upon its glossy curves with an effect that would enchant a 
painter. Lilies of the valley, the first of the season, are in her 
bosom and her hair, and she might be the personification of the 
flower for delicacy and beauty. You are only disappointed in 
talking with her. She expresses herself with a nerve and self- 
command, which, from a slight glance, you did not anticipate. 
She shrinks from the general eye, but in conversation she is the 
high-minded woman more than the timid child for which her 
manner seems to mark her. In either light, she is the very 
presence of purity. She stands by the side of her not less beau- 
tiful rival, like a Madonna by a Magdalen — both seem not at 
home in the world, but only one could have dropped from 
heaven. 



LETTER XLVIII. 

VALLOMBROSA ITALIAN OXEN CONVENT SERVICE IN THE 

CHAPEL HOUSE OCCUPIED BY MILTON. 

I left Florence for Vallombrosa at daylight on a warm sum- 
mer's morning, in company with four ladies. We drove along 
the northern bank of the Arno for four or five miles, passing 
several beautiful villas, belonging to the Florentine nobles ; and, 
crossing the river by a picturesque bridge, took the road to the 
village of Pelago, which lies at the foot of the mountain, and is 
the farthest point to which a carriage can mount. It is about 
fourteen miles from Florence, and the ascent thence to the con- 
vent is nearly three. 

We alighted in the centre of the village, in the midst of a rag- 
ged troop of women and children, among whom were two idiot 
beggars ; and, while the preparations were making for our ascent, 
we took chairs in the open square around a basket of cherries, 
and made a delicious luncheon of fruit and bread, very much to 
the astonishment of some two hundred spectators. 

Our conveyances appeared in the course of half an hour, con- 
sisting of two large baskets, each drawn by a pair of oxen and 



OXEN OF ITALY. 337 



containing two persons, and a small Sardinian pony The ladies 
seated themselves with some hesitation in their singular sledges ; 
I mounted the pony, and we made a dusty exit from Pelago, 
attended to the gate by our gaping friends, who bowed, and 
wished us the bon viaggio with more gratitude than three Tus- 
can crazie would buy, I am sure, in any other part of the world. 

The gray oxen of Italy are quite a different race from ours, 
much lighter and quicker, and in a small vehicle they will trot 
off five or six miles in the hour as freely as a horse. They are 
exceedingly beautiful. The hide is very fine, of a soft squirrel 
gray, and as sleek and polished often as that of a well-groomed 
courser. With their large, bright, intelligent eyes, high-lifted 
heads, and open nostrils, they are among the finest-looking ani- 
mals in the world in motion. We soon came to the steep path, 
and the facility with which our singular equipages mounted was 
surprising. I followed, as well as I could, on my diminutive 
pony, my feet touching the ground, and my balance constantly 
endangered by the contact of stumps and stones — the hard- 
mouthed little creature taking his own way, in spite of every 
effort of mine to the contrary. 

We stopped to breathe in a deep, cool glen, which lay across 
our path, the descent into which was very difficult. The road 
through the bottom of it ran just above the bank of a brook, into 
which poured a pretty fall of eight or ten feet, and with the 
spray-wet grass beneath, and the full-leaved chestnuts above, ifc 
was as delicious a spot for a rest in a summer noontide as I ever 
saw. The ladies took out their pencils and sketched it, mak- 
ing a group themselves the while, which added all the picture 
wanted. 

The path wound continually about in the deep woods, with 
15 



33S VALLOMBROSA. 

which the mountain is covered, and occasionally from an opening 
we obtained a view back upon the valley of the Arno, which was 
exceedingly fine. We came in sight of the convent in about two 
hours, emero-ino- from the shade of the thick chestnuts into a 
cultivated lawn, fenced and mown with the nicety of the grass- 
plot before a cottage, and entering upon a smooth, well-swept 
pavement, approached the gate of the venerable-looking pile, as 
anxious for the refreshment of its far-famed hospitality as ever 
pilgrims were. 

An old cheerful-looking monk came out to meet us, and shak- 
ing hands with the ladies very cordially, assisted in extracting 
them from their cramped conveyances. He then led the way to 
a small stone cottage, a little removed from the convent, quoting 
gravely by the way the law of the order against the entrance of 
females over the monastic threshold. We were ushered into a 
small, neat parlor, with two bedrooms communicating, and two 
of the servants of the monastery followed, with water and snow- 
white napkins, the padre degli foreslieri, as they called the old 
monk, who received us, talking most volubly all the while. 

The cook appeared presently with a low reverence, and asked 
what we would like for dinner. He ran over the contents of the 
larder before we had time to answer his question, enumerating 
half a dozen kinds of game, and a variety altogether that rather 
surprised our ideas of monastical severity. His own rosy gills 
bore testimony that it was not the kitchen of Dennis Bul- 
gruddery. 

While dinner was preparing, Father Gasparo proposed a walk. 
An avenue of the most majestic trees opened immediately away 
from the little lawn before the cottage door. We followed it 
perhaps half a mile round the mountain, threading a thick pine 



A CONVENT DINNER. 339 



forest, till we emerged on the edge of a shelf of greensward, run- 
ning just under the summit of the hill. From this spot the view 
was limited only by the power of the eye. The silver line of the 
Mediterranean off Leghorn is seen hence on a clear day, between 
which and the mountain lie sixty or seventy miles, wound into 
the loveliest undulations by the course of the Arno. The vale 
of this beautiful river, in which Florence stands, was just distin- 
guishable as a mere dell in the prospect. It was one of the sul- 
triest days of August, but the air was vividly fresh, and the sun, 
with all the strength of the climate of Italy, was unoppressive. 
We seated ourselves on the small fine grass of the hillside, and 
with the good old monk narrating passages of his life, enjoyed 
the glorious scene till the cook's messenger summoned us back to 
dinner. 

We were waited upon at table by two young servitors of the 
convent, with shaven crowns and long black cassocks, under the 
direction of Father Grasparo, who sat at a little distance, enter- 
taining us with his inexhaustible stories till the bell rung for the 
convent supper. The dinner would have graced the table of an 
emperor. Soup, beef, cutlets, ducks, woodcocks, followed each 
other, cooked in the most approved manner, with all the accom- 
paniments established by taste and usage ; and better wine, white 
and red, never was pressed from- the Tuscan grape. The des- 
sert was various and plentiful ; and while we were sitting, after 
the good father's departure, wondering at the luxuries we had 
found on a mountain-top, strong coffee and liqueurs were set be- 
fore us, both of the finest flavor. 

I was to sleep myself in the convent. Father Gasparo joined 
us upon the wooden bench in the avenue, where we were enjoy- 
ing a brilliant sunset, and informed me that the gates shut at 



340 VESPERS AT VALLOMBROSA. 



eight. The vesper-bell soon rung, echoing round from the rocks, 
and I bade my four companions good night, and followed the 
monk to the cloisters. As we entered the postern, he asked me 
whether I would go directly to the cell, or attend first the service 
in the chapel, assisting my decision at the same time by gently 
slipping his arm through mine and drawing me toward the cloth 
door, from which a strong peal of the organ was issuing. 

We lifted the suspended curtain, and entered a chapel so 
dimly lit, that I could only judge of its extent from the rever- 
berations of the music. The lamps were all in the choir, be- 
hind the altar, and the shuffling footsteps of the gathering monks 
approached it from every quarter. Father G-asparo led me to 
the base of a pillar, and telling me to kneel, left me and entered 
the choir, where he was lost in the depth of one of the old richly- 
carved seats for a few minutes, appearing again with thirty or 
forty others, who rose and joined in the chorus of the chant, 
making the hollow roof ring with the deep unmingled base of 
their voices. 

I stood till I was chilled, listening to the service, and looking 
at the long line of monks rising and sitting, with their monoto- 
nous changes of books and positions, and not knowing which way 
to go for warmth or retirement. I wandered up and down the 
dim church during the remaining hour, an unwilling, but not 
altogether an unamused spectator of the scene. The performers 
of the service, with the exception of Father Gasparo, were 
young men from sixteen to twenty ; but during my slow turns to 
and fro on the pavement of the church, fifteen or twenty old 
monks entered, and, with a bend of the knee before the altar, 
went off into the obscure corners, and knelt motionless at prayer, 
for almost an hour. I could just distinguish the dark outline of 



THE MONK'S ESTIMATE OF WOMEN. 341 



their figures when my eye became accustomed to the imperfect 
light, and I never saw a finer spectacle of religious devotion. 

The convent clock struck ten, and shutting up their " clasped 
missals," the young monks took their cloaks about them, bent 
their knees in passing the altar, and disappeared by different 
doors. Father Gasparo was the last to depart, and our footsteps 
echoed as we passed through the long cloisters to the cell appro- 
priated for me. We opened one of some twenty small doors, 
and I was agreeably surprised to find a supper of cold game 
upon the table, with a bottle of wine, and two plates — the monk 
intending to give me his company at supper. The cell was hung 
round with bad engravings of the Virgin, the death of martyrs, 
crosses, &c, and a small oaken desk stood against the wall be- 
neath a large crucifix, with a prayer-book upon it. The bed 
was high, ample, and spotlessly white, and relieved the otherwise 
comfortless look of a stone floor and white-washed walls. I felt 
the change from summer heat to the keen mountain air, and as I 
shivered and buttoned my coat, my gay guest threw over me his 
heavy black cowl of cloth— a dress that, with its closeness and 
numerous folds, would keep one warm in Siberia. Adding to it 
his little black scull-cap, he told me, with a hearty laugh, that 
but for a certain absence of sanctity in the expression of my face, 
and the uncanonical length of my hair, I looked the monk com- 
plete. We had a merry supper. The wine was of a choicer 
vintage than that we had drank at dinner, and the father an- 
swered, upon my discovery of its merits, that he never wasted it 
upon women. 

In the course of the conversation, I found out that my enter- 
tainer was a kind of butler, or head-servitor of the convent, and 
that the great body of the monks were of noble lineage. The 



342 MILTON'S ROOM. 



feeling of pride still remains among them from the days when the 
Certosa of Vallonibrosa was a residence for princes, before its 
splendid pictures were pillaged by a foreign army, its wealth 
scattered, and its numbers diminished. " In those days," said 
the monk, " we received nothing for our hospitality but the plea- 
sure it gave us" — relieving my mind, by the remark, of what I 
looked forward to at parting as a delicate point. 

My host left me at midnight, and I went to bed, and slept 
under a thick covering in an Italian August. " The blanched 
linen, white and lavendered," seemed to have a peculiar charm, 
for though I had promised to meet my excluded companions 
at sunrise, on the top of the mountain, I slept soundly till 
nine, and was obliged to breakfast alone in the refectory of the 
convent. 

We were to dine at three, and start for Florence at four the 
next day, and we spent our morning in traversing the mountain 
paths, and getting views on every side. Fifty or a hundred feet 
above the convent, perched on a rock like an eyry, stands a small 
building in which Milton is supposed to have lived, during his six 
weeks sojourn at the convent. It is now fitted up as a nest of 
small chapels — every one of its six or eight little chambers 
having an altar. The ladies were not permitted to enter it. I 
selected the room I presumed the poet must have chosen — the 
only one commanding the immense view to the west, and, looking 
from the window, could easily feel the truth of his simile, " thick 
as leaves in Vallombrosa." It is a mountain of foliage. 

Another sumptuous dinner was served, Father Gasparo sitting 
by, even more voluble than before, the baskets and the pony were 
brought to the door, and we bade farewell to the old monk with 



FLORENCE. 343 



more regret than a day's acquaintance often produces. We 
reached our carriage in an hour, and were in Florence at eight — 
having passed, by unanimous opinion, the two brightest days in 
)ur calendar of travel. 



LETTER XLIX. 

HOUSE OF MICHAEL ANGELO THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF SAN 

MINIATO — MADAME CATALANI WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

MIDNIGHT MASS, ETC. 

I went with a party this morning to visit the house of Michael 
Angelo. It stands as he lived in it, in the Via Ghibellini, and is 
still in possession of his descendants. It is a neat building of 
three stories, divided on the second floor into three rooms, shown 
as those occupied by the painter, sculptor, and poet. The first 
is panelled and painted by his scholars after his death — each 
picture representing some incident of his life. There are ten or 
twelve of these, and several of them are highly beautiful. One 
near the window represents him in his old age on a visit to 
" Lorenzo the Magnificent," who commands him to sit in hi? 
presence. The Duke is standing before his chair, and the figure 
of the old man is finely expressive. 

The next room appears to have been his parlor, and the 
furniture is exactly as it stood when he died. In one corner is 
placed a bust of him in his youth, with his face perfect ; anu 
opposite, another, taken from a cast after his nose was broken by 



THE HOUSE OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 345 



a fellow painter in the church of the Carmine. There are also 
one or two portraits of him, and the resemblance through them 
all, shows that the likeness we have of him in the engravings are 
uncommonly correct. 

In the inner room, which was his studio, they show his pallet, 
brushes, pots, maul-sticks, slippers, and easel — all standing 
carelessly in the little closets around, as if he had left them but 
yesterday. The walls are painted in fresco, by Angelo himself, 
and represent groups of all the distinguished philosophers, poets 
and statesmen of his time. Among them are the heads of 
Petrarch, Dante, Galileo, and Lorenzo de Medici. It is a noble 
gallery ! perhaps a hundred heads in all. 

The descendant of Buonarotti is now an old man, and 
fortunately rich enough to preserve the house of his great 
ancestor as an object of curiosity. He has a son, I believe, 
studying the arts at Rome. 



On a beautiful hill which ascends directly from one of the 
southern gates of Florence, stands a church built so long ago as 
at the close of the first century. The gate, church, and hill, are 
all called San Miniato, after a saint buried under the church 
pavement. A large, and at present flourishing convent, hangs on 
the side of the hill below, and around the church stand the walls 
of a strong fortress, built by Michael Angelo. A half mile or 
more south, across a valley, an old tower rises against the sky, 
which was erected for the observations of Galileo. A mile to 
the left, on the same ridge, an old villa is to be seen in which 
Boccaccio wrote most of his " Hundred Tales of Love." The 
15* 



346 FIESOLE. 



Arno comes down from Vallombrosa, and passing through 
Florence at the foot of San Miniato, is seen for three miles 
further on its way to Pisa ; the hill, tower, and convent of 
Fiesole, where Milton studied and Catiline encamped with his 
conspirators, rise from the opposite bank of the river ; and right 
below, as if you could leap into the lantern of the dome, nestles 
the lovely city of Florence, in the lap of the very brightest vale 
that ever mountain sheltered or river ran through. Such are the 
temptations to a walk in Italy, and add to it the charms of the 
climate, and you may understand one of a hundred reasons why 
it is the land of poetry and romance, and why it so easily 
becomes the land of a stranger's affection. 

The villas which sparkle all over the hills which lean unto 
Florence, are occupied mainly by foreigners living here for health 
or luxury, and most of them are known and visited by the floating 
society ot the place. Among them are Madame Catalani, the 
celebrated singer, who occupies a beautiful palace on the ascent 
of Fiesole, and Walter Savage Landor, the author of the 
" Imaginary Conversations," as refined a scholar perhaps as is 
now living, who is her near neighbor. A pleasant family of my 
acquaintance lives just back of the fortress of San Miniato, and 
in walking out to them with a friend yesterday, I visited the 
church again, and remarked more particularly the features of 
the scene I have described. 

The church of San Miniato was built by Henry I. of Germany, 
and Cunegonde his wife. The front is pretty — a kind of mixture 
of Greek and Arabic architecture, crusted with marble. The 
interior is in the style of the primitive churches, the altar 
standing in what was called the presbytery, a high platform 
occupying a third of the nave, with two splendid flights of stairs 



SAN MINIATO. 347 



of the purest white marble. The most curious part of it is the 
rotunda in the rear, which is lit by five windows of "transparent 
oriental alabaster, each eight or nine feet high and three broad, in 
single slabs. The sun shone full on one of them while we were 
there, and the effect was inconceivably rich. It was like a sheet 
of half molten gold and silver. The transparency of course was 
irregular, but in the yellow spots of the stone the light came 
through like the effect of deeply stained glass. 

A partly subterranean chapel, six or eight feet lower than the 
pavement of the church, extends under the presbytery. It is a 
labyrinth of marble columns which support the platform above, 
no two of which are alike. The ancient cathedral of Modena is 
the only church I have seen in Italy built in the same manner. 



The midnight mass on " Christmas eve," is abused in all 
catholic countries, I believe, as a kind of saturnalia of gallantry. 
I joined a party of young men who were leaving a ball for the 
church of the Annunciata, the fashionable rendezvous, and we 
were set down at the portico when the mass was about half over. 
The entrances of the open vestibule were thronged to suffocation. 
People of all ages and conditions were crowding in and out, and 
the sound of the distant chant at the altar came to our ears as 
we entered, mingled with every tone of address and reply from 
the crowd about us. The body of the church was quite obscured 
with the smoke of the incense. We edged our way on through 
the press, carried about in the open area of the church by every 
tide that rushed in from the various doors, till we stopped in a 
thick eddy in the centre, almost unable to stir a limb. I could 



348 CHRISTMAS EVE. 



see the altar very clearly from this point, and I contented myself 
with merely observing what was about me, leaving my motions to 
the impulse of the crowd. 

It was a curiously mingled scene. The ceremonies of the 
altar were going on in all their mysterious splendor. The waving 
of censers, the kneeling and rising of the gorgeously clad priests, 
accompanied simultaneously by the pealing of solemn music from 
the different organs — the countless lights burning upon the altar, 
and, ranged within the paling, a semicircle of the duke's 
grenadiers, standing motionless, with their arms presented, while 
the sentinel paced to and fro, and all kneeling, and grounding 
arms at the tinkle of the slight bell — were the materials for the 
back-ground of the picture. In the immense area of the 
church stood perhaps, four thousand people, one third of whom, 
doubtless, came to worship. Those who did and those who did 
not, dropped alike upon the marble pavement at the sound of the 
bell ; and then, as I was heretic enough to stand, I had full 
opportunity for observing both devotion and intrigue. The latter 
was amusingly managed. Almost all the pretty and young 
women were accompanied by an ostensible duenna, and the 
methods of eluding their vigilance in communication were various. 
I had detected under a blond wig, in entering, the young 
ambassador of a foreign court, who being cavalier e servente to one 
of the most beautiful women in Florence, certainly had no right 
to the amusement of the hour. We had been carried up the 
church in the same tide, and when the whole crowd were 
prostrate, I found him just beyond me, slipping a card into the 
shoe of an uncommonly pretty girl kneeling before him. She 
was attended by both father and mother apparently, but as she 
gave no sign of surprise, except stealing an almost imperceptible 



AMUSING SCENES IN CHURCH. 349 



glance behind her, I presumed she was not offended. I passed 
an hour, perhaps, in amused observation of similar matters, most 
of which could not be well described on paper. It is enough to 
say, that I do not think more dissolute circumstances accompanied 
the worship of Yenus in the most defiled of heathen temples. 



LETTER L. 

FLORENCE VISIT TO THE CHURCH OF SAN GAETANO PENITENTIAL 

PROCESSIONS THE REFUGEE CARLISTS THE MIRACLE OF RAIN 

CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATA TOMB OF GIOVANNI DI BOLOGNA 

MASTERPIECE OF ANDREA DEL SARTO, ETC., ETC. 

I heard the best passage of the opera of " Romeo and Juliet" 
delightfully played in the church of San Gaetano this morning. 
I was coming from the cafe, where I had been breakfasting, 
when the sound of the organ drew me in. The communion 
was administering at one of the side chapels, the showy 
Sunday mass was going on at the great altar, and the numerous 
confession boxes were full of penitents, all female, as usual. 
As I took a seat near the communicants, the sacred wafer was 
dipped into the cup and put into the mouth of a young woman 
kneeling before the railing. She rose soon after, and I was 
not lightly surprised to find it was a certain errand-girl of a 
bachelor's washerwoman, as unfit a person for the holy sacrament 
as wears a petticoat in Florence. 

I was drawn by the agreeable odor of the incense to the paling 
of the high altar. The censers were flung by unseen hands from 
the doors of the sacristy at the sides, and an unseen chorus of 



PENITENTIAL PROCESSIONS. 351 



boys in the choir behind, broke in occasionally with the high-keyed 
chant that echoes with its wild melody from every arch and corner 
of these immense churches. It seems running upon the highest 
note that the ear can bear, and yet nothing could be more 
musical. A man knelt on the pavement near me, with two 
coarse baskets beside him, and the traces of long and dirty 
travel from his heels to his hips. He had stopped in to the mass, 
probably, on his way to market. There can be no greater 
contrast than that seen in Catholic churches, between the splendor 
of architecture, renowned pictures, statues and ornaments of 
silver and gold, and the crowd of tattered, famished, misery- 
marked worshippers that throng them. I wonder it never 
occurs to them, that the costly pavement upon which they kneel 
might feed and clothe them.* 

Penitential processions are to be met all over Florence to-day, 
on account of the uncommon degree of sickness. One of them 
passed under my window just now. They are composed of 
people of all classes, upon whom it is inflicted as a penance by 
the priests. A white robe covers them entirely, even the face, 
and, with their eyes glaring through the two holes made for that 
purpose, they look like processions of shrouded corpses. Eight 
of the first carry burning candles of six feet in length, and a 
company in the rear have the church books, from which they 
chant, the whole procession joining in a melancholy chorus of 
three notes. It rains hard to-day, and their white dresses cling 
to them with a ludicrously ungraceful effect. 

*The Tuscans, who are the best governed people in Italy, pay twenty per 
cent, of their property in taxes — paying the whole value of their estates, of 
course, in five years. The extortions of the priests, added to this, are 
sufficiently burdensome. 



352 THE CARLIST REFUGEES. 



Florence is an unhealthful climate in the winter. The 

tramontane winds come down from the Appenines so sharply, that 

delicate constitutions, particularly those liable to pulmonary 

complaints, suffer invariably. There has been a dismal mortality 

among the Italians. The Marquis Corsi, who presented me at 

court a week ago (the last day he was out, and the last duty he 

performed), lies in state, at this moment, in the church of Santa 

Trinita, and another of the duke's counsellors of state died a few 

days before. His prime minister, Fossombroni, is dangerously 

i 
ill also, and all of the same complaint, the mat di petto, as it is 

called, or disease of the lungs. Corsi is a great loss to Amer- 
icans. He was the grand chamberlain of court, wealthy and 
hospitable, and took particular pride in fulfilling the functions of 
an American ambassador. He was a courtier of the old school, 
accomplished, elegant, and possessed of universal information. 



The refugee Carlists are celebrating to-day, in the church of 
Santa Maria Novella, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. 
The bishop of Strasbourg is here, and is performing high mass 
for the soul of the " martyr," as they term him. Italy is full 
of the more aristocratic families of France, and it has become 
mauvais ton in society to advocate the present government of 
France, or even its principles. They detest Louis Philippe with 
the virulence of a deadly private enmity, and declare universally, 
that they will exile themselves till they can return to overthrow 
him. Among the refugees are great numbers of young men, who 
are sent away from home with a chivalrous devotion to the cause 
of the Duchess of Berri, which they avow so constantly in the 
circles of Italian society, that she seems the exclusive heroine of 



THE MIRACLE OF RAIN. 353 



the day. There was nothing seen of the French exquisites in 
Florence for a week after she was taken. They were in mourn- 
ing for the misfortune of their mistress. 



All Florence is ringing with the miracle, . The city fountains 
have for some days been dry, and the whole country was suffering 
for rain. The day before the moon changed, the procession began, 
and the day after, when the sky was full of clouds, the holy 
picture in the church of the Annunciata, " painted by St. Luke 
himself," was solemnly uncovered. The result was the present 
miracle of rain, and the priests are preaching upon it from every 
pulpit. The padrone of my lodgings came in this morning, and 
told me the circumstances with the most serious astonishment. 

I joined the crowd this morning, who are still thronging up the 
via de Servi to the church of the Annunciata at all hours of the 
day. The square in front of the church was like a fair — every 
nook occupied with the little booths of the sellers of rosaries, 
saints books, and pictures. We were assailed by a troop of 
pedlars at the door, holding leaden medals and crucifixes, and 
crying, at the top of their voices, for fidele Christiani to spend a 
crazie for the love of God. 

After crowding up the long cloister with a hundred or two of 
wretches, steaming from the rain, and fresh from every filthy 
occupation in the city, we were pushed under the suspended 
leather door, and reached the nave of the church. In the slow 
progress we made toward the altar, I had full opportunity to 
study the fretted-gold ceiling above me, the masterly pictures in 
the side chapels, the statuary, carving, and general architecture. 



354 THE MIRACULOUS PICTURE. 



Description can give you no idea of the waste of splendor in these 
places. 

I stood at last within sight of the miraculous picture. It is 
painted in fresco, above an altar surrounded with a paling of 
bronze and marble projecting into the body of the church. 
Eight or ten massive silver lamps, each one presented by some 
trade in Florence, hung from the roof of the chapel, burning 
with a dusky glare in the daylight. A grenadier, with cap and 
musket, stood on each side of the bronze gate, repressing the 
eager rush of the crowd. Within, at the side of the altar, stood 
the officiating priest, a man with a look of intellect and nobleness 
on his fine features and lofty forehead, that seemed irreconcilable 
with the folly he was performing. The devotees came in, one by 
one, as they were admitted by the sentinel, knelt, offered their 
rosary to the priest, who touched it to the frame of the picture 
with one hand, and received their money with the other, and then 
crossing themselves, and pressing the beads to their bosom, passed 
out at the small door leading into the cloisters. 

As the only chance of seeing the picture, I bought a rosary for 
two crazie (about three cents), and pressed into the throng. In 
a half hour it came to my turn to pass' the guard. The priest 
took my silver paul, and while he touched the beads to the 
picture, I had a moment to look at it nearly. I could see 
nothing but a confused mass of black paint, with an indistinct 
outline of the head of the Madonna in the centre. The large 
spiked rays of glory standing out from every side were all I could 
see in the imperfect light. The richness of the chapel itself, 
however, was better worth the trouble to see. It is quite 
encrusted with silver. Silver bassi relievi, two silver candelabra, 
six feet in height, two very large silver statues of angels, a ciborio 



GIOVANNI DI BOLOGNA. 355 



(enclosing a most exquisite head of our Saviour, by Andrea del 
Sarto), a massive silver cornice sustaining a heavily folded silver 
curtain, and silver lilies and lamps in any quantity all around. I 
wonder, after the plundering of the church of San Antonio, at 
Padua, that these useless riches escaped Napoleon. 

How some of the priests, who are really learned and clever 
men, can lend themselves to such barefaced imposture as this 
miracle, it is difficult to conceive. The picture has been kept as 
a doer of these miracles, perhaps for a century. It is never 
uncovered in vain. Supernatural results are certain to follow, 
and it is done as often as they dare to make a fresh draught on 
the credulity and money of the people. The story is as follows : 
" A certain Bartolomeo, while painting a fresco of the annuncia- 
tion, being at a loss how to make the countenance of the Madonna 
properly seraphic, fell asleep while pondering over his work ; and, 
on waking, found it executed in a style he was unable to equal." 
I can only say that St. Luke, or the angel, or whoever did it, 
was a very indifferent draughtsman. It is ill drawn, and 
whatever the colors might have been upon the pallet of the 
sleepy painter, they were not made immortal by angelic use. It 
is a mass of confused black. 

I was glad to get away from the crowd and their mummery, 
and pay a new tribute of reverence at the tomb of Giovanni di 
Bologna. He is buried behind the grand altar, in a chapel 
ornamented at his own expense, and with his own inimitable 
works. Six bas-reliefs in bronze, than which life itself is not 
more natural, represent different passages of our Saviour's history. 
They were done for the Grand Duke, who, at the death of the 
artist, liberally gave them to ornament his tomb. After the au- 
thors of the Venus and the Apollo Belvidere, John of Bologna is, 



356 ANDREA DEL SARTO. 

in my judgment, the greatest of sculptors. His mounting Mercury, 
in the Florence gallery, might have been a theft from heaven for 
its divine beauty. 

In passing out by the cloisters of the adjoining convent, I 
stopped a moment to see the fresco of the Madonna del Sacco, 
said to have been the masterpiece of Andrea del Sarto. Michael 
Angelo and Raphael are said to have u gazed at it unceasingly." 
It is much defaced, and preserves only its graceful drawing. The 
countenance of Mary has the beau reste of singular loveliness. 
The models of this delightful artist (who, by the way, is buried 
in the vestibule of this same church), must have been the most 
beautiful in the world. All his pictures move the heart. 



LETTER LI. 

FLORENTINE PECULIARITIES SOCIETY BALLS DUCAL ENTER- 
TAINMENTS PRIVILEGE OF STRANGERS FAMILIES OF HIGH 

RANK THE EXCLUSIVES SOIREES PARTIES OF A RICH BANK- 
ER PEASANT BEAUTY VISITERS OF A BARONESS AWKWARD 

DEPORTMENT OF A PRINCE A CONTENTED MARRIED LADY 

HUSBANDS, CAVALIERS, AND WIVES PERSONAL MANNERS 

HABITS OF SOCIETY, ETC. 

I am about starting on my second visit to Rome, after having 
passed nearly three months in Florence. As I have seen most 
of the society of this gayest and fairest of the Italian cities, it 
may not be uninteresting to depart a little from the traveller's 
routine by sketching a feature or two. 

Florence is a resort for strangers from every part of the world. 
The gay society is a mixture of all nations, of whom one third 
may be Florentine, one third English, and the remaining part 
equally divided between Russians, Germans, French, Poles, and 
Americans. The English entertain a great deal, and give most 
of the balls and dinner parties. The Florentines seldom trouble 
themselves to give parties, but are always at home for visits in 



35S THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF FLORENCE. 



the prima sera (from seven till nine), and in their box at the 
opera. They go, without scruple, to all the strangers' balls, 
considering courtesy repaid, perhaps, by the weekly reception of 
the Grand Duke, and a weekly ball at the club-house of young 
Italian noblemen. 

The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday, and are the 
most splendid of course. The foreign ministers present all of 
their countrymen who have been presented at their own courts, 
and the company is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The 
Florentines who go to court are about seven hundred, of whom 
half are invited on each week — strangers, when once presented, 
having the double privilege of coming uninvited to all. There 
are several Italian families, of the highest rank, who are seen 
only here ; but, with the single exception of one unmarried girl, 
of uncommon beauty, who bears a name celebrated in Italian his- 
tory, they are no loss to general society. Among the foreigners 
of rank, are three or four German princes, who play high and 
waltz well, and are remarkable for nothing else ; half a dozen 
star-wearing dukes, counts, and marquises, of all nations and in 
any quantity, and a few English noblemen and noble ladies — ■ 
only the latter nation showing their blood at all in their features 
and bearing. 

The most exclusive society is that of the Prince Montfort 
( Jerome Bonaparte), whose splendid palace is shut entirely 
against the English, and difficult of access to all. He makes a 
single exception in favor of a descendant of the Talbots, a ladv 
whose beauty might be an apology for a much graver departure 
from rule. He has given two grand entertainments since the 
carnival commenced, to which nothing was wanting but people to 
enjoy them. The immense rooms were flooded with light, the 



A PEASANT BEAUTY. 359 



music was the best Florence could give, the supper might have 
supped an army — stars and red ribands entered with every fresh 
comer, but it looked like a " banquet hall deserted." Some 
thirty ladies, and as many men, were all that Florence contained 
worthy of the society of the Ex-King. A kinder man in his man- 
ners, however, or apparently a more affectionate husband and 
father, I never saw. He opened the dance by waltzing with the 
young Princess, his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen, of whom 
he seems fond to excess, and he was quite the gayest person in 
the company till the ball was over. The Ex-Queen, who is a 
miracle of size, sat on a divan, with her ladies of honor about her, 
following her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his gayety 
with the most childish good humor. 

The Saturday evening soirees, at Prince Poniatowski's (a 
brother of the hero), are perhaps as agreeable as any in Florence. 
He has several grown-up sons and daughters married, and, with 
a very sumptuous palace and great liberality of style, he has 
made his parties more than usually valued. His eldest daughter 
is the leader of the fashion, and his second is the " cynosure of 
all eyes." The old Prince is a tall, bent, venerable man, with 
snow-white hair, and very peculiarly marked features. He is 
fond of speaking English, and professes a great affection for 
America. 

Then there are the soirees of the rich banker, Fenzi, which, as 
they are subservient to business, assemble all ranks on the com- 
mon pretensions of interest. At the last, I saw, among other 
curiosities, a young girl of eighteen from one of the more com- 
mon families of Florence — a fine specimen of the peasant beauty 
of Italy. Her heavily moulded figure, hands, and feet, were 
quite forgiven when yon looked at her dark, deep, indolent eye, 



360 THE MORALITY OF SOCIETY. 



and glowing skin, and strongly-lined mouth and forehead. The 
society was evidently new to her, but she had a manner quite 
beyond being astonished. It was the kind of animal dignity so 
universal in the lower classes of this country. 

A German baroness of high rank receives on the Mondays, and 
here one sees foreign society in its highest coloring. The pret- 
tiest woman that frequents her parties, is a Genoese marchioness, 
who has left her husband to live with a Lucchese count, who has 
left his wife. He is a very accomplished man, with the look of 
Mephistopheles in the " Devil's Walk," and she is certainly a 
most fascinating woman. She is received in most of the good 
society of Florence— a severe, though a very just Comment on its 

character. A Prince, the brother of the King of , divided 

the attention of the company with her last Monday. He is a 
tall, military -looking man, with very bad manners, ill at ease, 
and impudent at the same time. He entered with his suite in 
the middle of a song. The singer stopped, the company rose, 
the Prince swept about, bowing like a dancing-master, and, after 
the sensation had subsided, the ladies were taken up and pre- 
sented to him, one by one. He asked them all the same ques- 
tion, stayed through two songs, which he spoiled by talking loudly 
all the while, and then bowed himself out in the same awkward 
style, leaving everybody more happy for his departure. 

One gains little by his opportunities of meeting Italian ladies 
in society. The cavaliere servente flourishes still as in the days of 
Beppo, and it is to him only that the lady condescends to talk. 
There is a delicate, refined-looking, little marchioness here, who 
is remarkable as being the only known Italian lady without a 
cavalier. They tell you, with an amused smile, " that she is 
content with her husband." It really seems to be a business of 



THE ITALIAN CAVALIER. 361 



real love between the lady of Italy and her cavalier. Naturally 
enough too — for her parents marry her without consulting her at 
all, and she selects a friend afterward, as ladies in other countries 
select a lover who is to end in a husband. The married couple 
are never seen together by any accident, and the lady and her 
cavalier never apart. The latter is always invited with her as a 
matter of course, and the husband, if there is room, or if he is 
not forgotten. She is insulted if asked without a cavalier, but is 
quite indifferent whether her husband goes with her or not. 
These are points really settled in the policy of society, and the 
rights of the cavalier are specified in the marriage contracts. I 
had thought, until I came to Italy, that such things were either 
a romance, or customs of an age gone by. 

I like very much the personal manners of the Italians. They 
are mild and courteous to the farthest extent of looks and words. 
They do not entertain, it is true, but their great dim rooms are 
free to you whenever you can find them at home, and you are at 
liberty to join the gossiping circle around the lady of the house, 
or sit at the table and read, or be silent unquestioned. You are 
let alone, if you seem to choose it, and it is neither commented 
on, nor thought uncivil, and this I take to be a grand excellence 
in manners. 

The society is dissolute, I think, almost without an exception. 
The English fall into its habits, with the difference that they do 
not conceal it so well, and have the appearance of knowing its 
wrong — which the Italians have not. The latter are very much 
shocked at the want of propriety in the management of the Eng- 
lish. To suffer the particulars of an intrigue to get about is a 
worse sin, in their eyes, than any violation of the commandments. 

It is scarce possible for an American to conceive the universal 
16 



362 THE FEATURES OF SOCIETY. 



corruption of a society like this of Florence, though, if he were 
not told of it he would think it all that was delicate and attrac- 
tive. There are external features in which the society of our 
own country is far less scrupulous and proper. 



LETTER LII. * 

SIENNA POGGIOBONSI BONCONVENTO ENCOURAGEMENT OF 

FRENCH ARTISTS BY THEIR GOVERNMENT ACQUAPENDENTE 

POOR BEGGAR, THE ORIGINAL OF A SKETCH BY COLE BOLSENA 

VOLSCENIUM SCENERY CURIOUS STATE OF THE CHESTNUT 

WOODS. 

Sienna. — A day and a half on my second journey to Rome. 
With a party of four nations inside, and two strangers, probably 
Frenchmen, in the cabriolet, we have jogged on at some three 
miles in the hour, enjoying the lovely scenery of these lower 
Appenines at our leisure. We slept last night at Poggiobonsi, a 
little village on a hill-side, and arrived at Sienna for our mid-day 
rest. I pencil this note after an hour's ramble over the city, 
visiting once more the cathedral, with its encrusted marbles and 
naked graces, and the shell-shaped square in the centre of the 
city, at the rim of which the eight principal streets terminate. 
There is a fountain in the midst, surrounded with bassi relievi 
much disfigured. It was mentioned by Dante. The streets 
were deserted, it being Sunday, and all the people at the Corso, 
to see the racing of horses without riders. 



364 ARTISTS AND THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 



Bonconvento. — We sit, with the remains of a traveller's 
supper on the table — six very social companions. Our cabriolet 
friends are two French artists, on their way to study at Rome. 
They are both pensioners of the government, each having gained 
the annual prize at the academy in his separate branch of art, 
which entitles him to five years' support in Italy. They are full 
of enthusiasm, and converse with all the amusing vivacity of their 
nation. The academy of France send out in this manner five 
young men annually, who have gained the prizes for painting, 
sculpture, architecture, music, and engraving. 

This is the place where Henry the Seventh of Germany was 
poisoned by a monk, on his way to Rome. The drug was given 
to him in the communion cup. The " Ave Marie" was ringing 
when we drove into town, and I left the carriage and followed the 
crowd, in the hope of finding an old church where the crime 
might have been committed. But the priest was mumbling the 
service in a new chapel, which no romance that I could summon 
would picture as the scene of a tragedy. 



Acquapendente. — While the dirty customhouse officer is 
deciphering our passports, in a hole a dog would live in unwill- 
ingly, I take out my pencil to mark once more the pleasure I 
have received from the exquisite scenery of this place. The 
wild rocks enclosing the little narrow valley below, the waterfalls, 
the town on its airy perch above, the just starting vegetation of 
spring, the roads lined with snowdrops, crocuses and violets, have 
renewed, in a tenfold degree, the delight with which I saw this 
romantic spot on my former journey to Rome. 

We crossed the mountain of Radicofani yesterday, in so thick 



BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 365 



a mist that I could not even distinguish the ruin of the old castle, 
towering into the clouds above. The wild, half-naked people 
thronged about us as before, and I gave another paul to the old 
beggar with whom I became acquainted by Mr. Cole's graphic 
sketch. The winter had, apparently, gone hard with him. He 
was scarce able to come to the carriage window, and coughed so 
hollowly that I thought he had nearly begged his last pittance. 

Bolsena. — We walked in advance of the vetturino along the 
borders ot this lovely and beautiful lake till we are tired. Our 
artists have taken off their coats with the heat, and sit, a quarter 
of a mile further on, pointing in every direction at these unpa- 
ralleled views. The water is as still as a mirror, with a soft mist 
on its face, and the water-fowl in thousands are diving and float- 
ing within gunshot of us. An afternoon in June could not be 
more summer-like, and this, to a lover of soft climate, is no 
trifling pleasure. 

A mile behind us lies the town, the seat of ancient Volscinium, 
the capital of the Volscians. The eountry about is one quarry 
of ruins, mouldering away in the moss. Nobody can live in 
health in the neighborhood, and the poor pale wretches who call 
it a home are in melancholy contrast to the smiling paradise 
about them. Before us, in the bosom of the lake, lie two green 
islands, those which Pliny records to have floated in his time ; 
and one of which, Martana^ a small conical isle, was the scene 
of the murder of the queen of the Goths, by her cousin Theoda- 
tus. She was taken there and strangled. It is difficult to 
imagine, with such a sea of sunshine around and over it, that it 
was ever anything but a spot of delight. 

The whole neighborhood is covered with rotten trunks of trees 
— a thing which at first surprised me in a country where wood is 



366 SACRED WOODS OF BOLSENA. 



so economised. It is accounted for in the French guide-book of 
one of our party by the fact, that the chestnut woods of Bolsena 
are considered sacred by the people, from their antiquity, and are 
never cut. The trees have ripened and fallen and rotted thus for 
centuries — one cause, perhaps, of the deadly change in the air. 

The vetfcurino comes lumbering up, and I must pocket my 
j>encil and remount. 



LETTER LIII. 

MONTEFIASCONE ANECDOTE OF THE WINE VITERBO MOUNT 

CIMINO TRADITION VIEW OF ST. PETER'S ENTRANCE INTO 

ROME A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY. 

Montefiascone. — We have stopped for the night at the hotel 
of this place, so renowned for its wine — the remnant of a bottle 
of which stands, at this moment, twinkling between me and my 
French companions. The ladies of our party have gone to bed, 
and left us in the room where sat Jean Defoucris, the merry 
German monk, who died of excess in drinking the same liquor 
that flashes through this straw-covered flask. The story is told 
more fully in the French guide-books. A prelate of Augsbourg, 
on a pilgrimage to Rome, sent forward his servant with orders to 
mark every tavern where the wine was good with the word est, in 
large letters of chalk. On arriving at this hotel, the monk saw 
the signal thrice written over the door — Est ! Est ! Est ! 
He put up his mule, and drank of Montefiascone till he died. 
His servant wrote his epitaph, which is still seen in the church 
of St. Florian : — 

" Propter minium est, est, 
Dominus meus mortuus est !" 



368 THE VIRTUOSO OF VITERBO. 



" Est, Est, Est /" is the motto upon the sign of the hotel to 
this day. 



In wandering about Viterbo in search of amusement, while the 
horses were baiting, I stumbled upon the shop of an antiquary. 
After looking over his medals, Etruscan vases, cameos, &c, a 
very interesting collection, I inquired into the state of trade for 
such things in Viterbo. He was a cadaverous, melancholy 
looking old man, with his pockets worn quite out with the habit 
of thrusting his hands into them, and about his mouth and eye 
there was the proper virtuoso expression of inquisitiveness and 
discrimination. He kept also a small cafe adjoining his shop, 
into which we passed, as he shrugged his shoulders at my question. 
I had wondered to find a vender of Mostly curiosities in a town of 
such poverty, and I was not surprised at the sad fortunes which 
had followed upon his enterprise. They were a base herd, he 
said, of the people, utterly ignorant of the value of the precious 
objects he had for sale .and he had -been compelled to open a 
cafe, and degrade himself by waiting on them for a contemptible 
crazie. worth of coffee, while his lovely antiquities lay unappre- 
ciated within. The old gentleman was eloquent upon his 
misfortunes. He had not been long in trade, and had collected 
his museum originally for his own amusement. He was an odd 
specimen, in a small way, of a man who was quite above his 
sphere, and suffered for his superiority. I bought a pretty 
intaglio, and bade him farewell, after an hour's acquaintance, 
with quite the feeling of a friend. 



ROBBERIES. 369 



Mount Cimino rose before us soon after leaving Viterbo, and 
we walked up most of the long and gentle ascent, inhaling the 
odor of the spicy plants for which it is famous, and looking out 
sharply for the brigands with which it is always infested. English 
carriages are constantly robbed on this part of the route of late. 
The robbers are met usually in parties of ten and twelve, and, a 
week before we passed, Lady Berwick (the widow of an English 
nobleman, and a sister of the famous Harriet Wilson) was 
stopped and plundered in broad mid-day. The excessive distress 
among the peasantry of these misgoverned States accounts for 
these things, and one only wonders why there is not even more 
robbing among such a starving population. This mountain, by 
the way, and the pretty lake below it, are spoken of in the 
iEneid : " Cimini cum monte locum," etc. There is an ancient 
tradition, that in the crescent-shaped valley which the lake fills, 
there was formerly a city, which was overwhelmed by the rise of 
the water, and certain authors state that when the lake is clear, 
the ruins are still to be seen at the bottom. 



The sun rose upon us as we reached the mountain above 

Baccano, on the sixth day of our journey, and, by its clear 

golden flood, we saw the dome of St. Peter's, at a distance of 

sixteen miles, towering amid the campagna in all its majestic 

beauty. We descended into the vast plain, and traversed its 

gentle undulations for two or three hours. With the forenoon 

well advanced, we turned into the valley of the Tiber, and saw 

the home of Raphael, a noble chateau on the side of a bill, near 

the river, and, in the little plain between, the first peach-trees we 
16* 



370 * ROME AS FANCIED. 



had seen, in full blossom. The tomb of Nero is on one side of 
the road, before crossing the Tiber, and on the other a newly 
painted and staring restoAirant, where the modern Roman 
cockneys drive for punch and ices. The bridge of Pontemolle, 
by which we passed into the immediate suburb of Rome, was the 
ancient Pons JEmilius, and here Cicero arrested the conspirators 
on their way to join Catiline in his camp. It was on the same 
bridge, too, that Constantine saw his famous vision, and gained 
his victory over the tyrant Maxentius. 

Two miles over the Via Flaminia, between garden walls that 
were ornamented with sculpture and inscription in the time of 
Augustus, brought us to the Porta del Popolo. The square 
within this noble gate is modern, but very imposing. Two 
streets diverge before you, as far away as you can see into the 
heart of the city, a magnificent fountain sends up its waters in 
the centre, the facades of two handsome churches face you as 
you enter, and on the right and left are gardens and palaces of 
princely splendor. Gray and sumptuous equipages cross it in 
every direction, driving out to the villa Borghese, and up to the 
Pincian mount, the splendid troops of the Pope are on guard, and 
the busy and stirring population of modern Rome swell out to 
its limit like the ebb and flow of the sea. All this disappoints 
while it impresses the stranger. He has come to Rome — but it 
was old Rome that he had pictured to his fancy. The Forum, 
the ruins of her temples, the palaces of her emperors, the homes 
of her orators, poets, and patriots, the majestic relics of the once 
mistress of the world, are the features in his anticipation. But 
he enters by a modern gate to a modern square, and pays his 
modern coin to a whiskered officer of customs ; and in the place 
of a venerable Belisarius begging an obolus in classic Latin, he is 



. ROME AS FOUND. 37 1 

beset by a troop of lusty and filthy lazzaroni entreating for 
a baioch in the name of the Madonna, and in effeminate Italian. 
He drives down the Corso, and reads nothing but French signs, 
and sees all the familiar wares of his own country exposed for 
sale, and every other person on the pave is an Englishman, with 
a narrow-rimmed hat and whalebone stick, and with an hour at 
the Dogama, where his baggage is turned inside out by a snuffy 
old man who speaks French, and a reception at a hotel where the 
porter addresses him in his own language, whatever it may be ; 
he goes to bed under Parisian curtains, and tries to dream of the 
Rome he could not realize while awake. 



LETTER LIV. 

appian way tomb of cecilia metella albano tomb of the 

curiatii aricia temple of diana fountain of egeria 

lake of nemi velletri pontine marshes convent ■ 

canal terracina san felice fondi story of julia 

gonzaga — cicero's garden and tomb — mola — minturna — 

ruins of an amphitheatre and temple falernian mount 

and wine the doctor of st. agatha capua entrance 

into naples the queen. 

With the intention of returning to Rome for the ceremonies of 
the holy week, I have merely passed through on my way to Naples. 
We left it the morning after our arrival, going by the " Appian 
way" to mount Albano, which borders the Campagna on the 
south, at a distance of fifteen miles. This celebrated road is 
lined with the ruined tombs of the Romans. Off at the right, 
some four or five miles from the city, rises the fortress-like tomb 
of Cecilia Metella, so exquisitely mused upon by Childe Harold. 
This, says Sismondi, with the tombs of Andrian and Augustus, 
became fortresses of banditti, in the thirteenth century, and were 
taken by Brancallone, the Bolognese governor of Rome, who 



THE FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA. 373 



hanged the marauders from the walls. It looks little like " a 
woman's grave." 

We changed horses at the pretty village of Albano, and, on 
leaving it, passed an ancient mausoleum, believed to be the tomb 
of the Curiatii who fought the Horatii on this spot. It is a large 
structure, and had originally four pyramids on the corners, two 
of which only remain. 

A mile from Albano lies Aricia, in a country of the loveliest 
rural beauty. Here was the famous temple of Diana, and here 
were the lake and grove sacred to the " virgin huntress," and 
consecrated as her home by peculiar worship. The fountain of 
Egeria is here, where Numa communed with the nymph, and the 
lake of Nemi, on the borders of which the temple stood, and which 
was called Diana* $ mirror (speculum Diana), is at this day, per- 
haps, one of the sweetest gems of natural scenery in the world. 

We slept at Velletri, a pretty town of some twelve thousand 
inhabitants, which stands on a hill-side, leaning down to the 
Pontine marshes. It was one of the grand days of carnival, and 
the streets were full -of masks, walking up and down in their 
ridiculous dresses, and committing every sort of foolery. The 
next morning, by daylight, we were upon the Pontine marshes, 
the long thirty miles level of which we passed in an unbroken trot, 
one part of a day's journey of seventy-five miles, done by the 
same horses, at the rate of six miles in the hour ! They are small, 
compact animals, and look in good condition, though they do as 
much habitually. 

At a distance of fifteen miles from Velletri, we passed a con- 
vent, which is built opposite the spot where St. Paul was met by 
his friends, on his journey from the seaside to Rome. The 
canal upon which Horace embarked on his celebrated journey to 



374 THE PONTINE MARSHES. 



Brundusium, runs parallel with the road for its whole distance. 
This marshy desert is inhabited by a race of as wretched beings, 
perhaps, as are to be found upon the face of the earth. The 
pestiferous miasma of the pools is certain destruction to health, 
and the few who are needed at the distant post-houses, crawl out 
to the road-side like so many victims from a pest-house, stooping 
with weakness, hollow-eyed, and apparently insensible to every- 
thing. The feathered race seems exempt from its influence, and 
the quantities of game of every known description are incredible. 
The ground was alive with wild geese, turkeys, pigeons, plover, 
ducks, and numerous birds we did not know, as far as the eye 
could distinguish. The travelling books caution against sleeping 
in the carriage while passing these marshes, but we found it next 
to impossible to resist the heavy drowsiness of the air. 

At Terracina the marshes end, and the long avenue of elms 
terminates at the foot of a romantic precipice, which is washed 
by the Mediterranean. The town is most picturesquely built be- 
tween the rocky wall and the sea. We dined with the hollow 
murmur of the surf in our ears, and then, presenting our pass- 
ports, entered the kingdom of Naples. This Terracina, by the 
way, was the ancient Anzur, which Horace describes in his 
line — 

" Impositum late saxis candentibus Anxur." 

For twenty or thirty miles before arriving at Terracina, we 
had seen before us the headland of Circoeum, lying like a moun- 
tain island off the shore. It is usually called San Felice, from 
the small town seated upon it. This was the ancient abode of 
the " daughter of the sun," and here were imprisoned, according 
to Homer, the champions of Ulysses, after their metamorphoses. 



MOLA. 375 



From Terracina to Fondi, we followed the old Appian way, a. 
road hedged with flowering myrtles and orange trees laden with 
fruit. Fondi itself is dirtier than imagination could picture it, 
and the scowling men in the streets look like myrmidons of Fra 
Diavolo, their celebrated countryman. This town, however, was 
the scene of the romantic story of the beautiful Julia Gi-onzaga, 
and was destroyed by the corsair Barbarossa, who had intended to 
present the rarest beauty of Italy to the Sultan. It was to the 
rocky mountains above the town that she escaped in her night- 
dress, and lay concealed till the pirate's departure. 

In leaving Fondi, we passed the ruined walls of a garden said 
to have belonged to Cicero, whose tomb is only three leagues 
distant. Night came on before we reached the tomb, and we 
were compelled to promise ourselves a pilgrimage to it on our 
return. 

We slept at Mola, and here Cicero was assassinated. The 
ruins of his country-house are still here. The town lies in the 
lap of a graceful bay, and in all Italy, it is said, there is no spot 
more favored by nature. The mountains shelter it from the 
winds of the north; the soil produces, spontaneously, the orange, 
the myrtle, the olive, delicious grapes, jasmine, and many odo- 
riferous herbs. This and its neighborhood was called, by the 
great orator and statesman who selected it for his retreat, " the 
most beautiful patrimony of the Romans." The Mediterranean 
spreads out from its bosom, the lovely islands ne»r Naples bound 
its view, Vesuvius sends up its smoke and fire in the south, and 
back from its hills stretches a country fertile and beautiful as a 
paradise. This is a place of great resort for the English and 
other travellers in the summer. The old palaces are turned into 



376 THE FALERNIAN HILLS. 



hotels, and we entered our inn through an avenue of shrubs that 
must have been planted and trimmed for a century. 



We left Mola before dawn and crossed the small river Garig- 
liano as the sun rose. A short distance from the southern bank, 
we found ourselves in the midst of ruins, the golden beams of the 
sun pouring upon us through the arches of some once magnificent 
structure, whose area is now crossed by the road. This was the 
ancient Minturna, and the ruins are those of an amphitheatre, 
and a temple of Yenus. Some say that it was in the marshes 
about the now waste city, that the soldier sent by Sylla to kill 
Marius, found the old hero, and, struck with his noble mien, fell 
with respect at his feet. 

The road soon enters a chain of hills, and the scenery becomes 
enchanting. At the left of the first ascent lies the Falernian 
mount, whose wines are immortalized by Horace. It is a beauti- 
ful hill, which throws round its shoulder to the south, and is 
covered with vineyards. I dismounted and walked on while the 
horses breathed at the post-house of St. Agatha, and was over- 
taken by a good-natured-looking man, mounted on a mule, of 
whom I made some inquiry respecting the modern Falernian. 
He said it was still the best wine of the neighborhood, but was 
far below its aifbient reputation, because never kept long enough 
to ripen. It is at its prime from the fifteenth to the twentieth 
year, and is usually drank the first or second. My new acquaint- 
ance, I soon found, was the physician of the two or three small 
villages nested about among the hills and a man of some preten- 
sions to learning. I was delighted with his frank good-humor, 



THE DOCTOR OF ST. AGATHA. 377 



and a certain spice of drollery in his description of his patients. 
The peasants at work in the fields saluted him from any distance 
as he passed ; and the pretty contadini going to St. Agatha with 
their baskets on their heads, smiled as he nodded, calling them all 
by name, and I was rather amused than offended with the inquisi- 
tivejiess he manifested about my age, family, pursuits, and even 
morals. His mule stopped of its own will, at the door of the 
apothecary of the small village on the summit of the hill, and as 
the carriage came in sight the doctor invited me, seizing my hand 
with a look of friendly sincerity, to stop at St. Agatha on my 
return, to shoot, and drink Falernian with him for a month. 
The apothecary stopped the vetturino at the door ; and, to the 
astonishment of my companions within, the doctor seized me in 
his arms and kissed me on both sides of my face with a volume 
of blessings and compliments, which I had no breath in my sur- 
prise to return. I have made many friends on the road in this 
country of quick feelings, but the doctor of St. Agatha had a 
readiness of sympathy which threw all my former experience into 
the shade. 

We dined at Capua, the city whose luxuries enervated Hanni- 
bal and his soldiers — the " dives, amoroso,, felix" Capua. It is 
in melancholy contrast with the description now — its streets 
filthy, and its people looking the antipodes of luxury. The 
climate should be the same, as we dined with open doors, and 
with the branch of an orange tree heavy with fruit hanging in at 
the window, in a month that with us is one of the wintriest. 

From Capua to Naples, the distance is but fifteen miles, over 
a flat, uninteresting country. We entered u this third city in the 
world" in the middle of the afternoon, and were immediately sur- 
rounded with beggars of every conceivable degree of misery. 



378 THE QUEEN OF NAPLES. 



"We sat an hour at the gate while our passports were recorded, 
and the vetturino examined, and then passing up a noble street, 
entered a dense crowd, through which was creeping slowly a 
double line of carriages. The mounted dragoons compelled our 
postillion to fall into the line, and we were two hours following in 
a fashionable corso with our mud-spattered vehicle and tired 
horses, surrounded by all that was brilliant and gay in. Naples. 
It was the last day of carnival. Everybody was abroad, and we 
were forced, however unwillingly to see all the rank and beauty 
of the city. The carriages in this fine climate are all open, and 
the ladies were in full dress. As we entered the Toledo, the 
cavalcade came to a halt, and with hats off and handkerchiefs 
flying in every direction about them, the young new-married 
Queen of Naples rode up the middle of the street preceded and 
followed by outriders in the gayest livery. She has been mar- 
ried about a month, is but seventeen, and is acknowledged to be 
the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. The description I 
had heard of her, though very extravagant, had hardly done her 
justice. She is a little above the middle height, with a fine lift 
to her head and neck, and a countenance only less modest and 
maidenly than noble. 



LETTER LV. 

ROME FRONT OF ST. PETER's EQUIPAGES OF THE CARDINALS — 

EEGGARS BODY OF THE CHURCH TOMB OF ST. PETER THE 

TIBER FORTRESS-TOMB OF ADRIAN JEWS' QUARTER FORUM 

BARBERINI PALACE PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI HER 

MELANCHOLY HISTORY PICTURE OF THE FORNARINA LIKE- 
NESS OF GIORGIONE'S MISTRESS JOSEPH AND POTIPHAR's 

WIFE THE PALACES DORIA AND SCIARRA PORTRAIT OF 

OLIVIA WALDACHINI OF "a CELEBRATED WIDOW" OF 

semiramis — Claude's landscapes — brill's — brughel's — 

notti's "woman catching fleas" da vincl's queen 

giovanna portrait of a female doria prince doria 

palace sciarra brill and both's landscapes 

Claude's — picture of noah intoxicated — romana's for- 



Drawn in twenty different directions on starting from my 
lodgings this morning, I found myself, undecided where to pass 
my day, in front of St. Peter's. Some gorgeous ceremony was 
just over, and the sumptuous equipages of the cardinals, blazing 
in the sun with their mountings of gold and silver, were driving 



380 ST. PETER'S. 



up and dashing away from the end of the long colonnades, pro- 
ducing any effect upon the mind rather than a devout one. I 
stood admiring their fiery horses and gay liveries, till the last 
rattled from the square, and then mounted to the deserted 
church. Its vast vestibule was filled with beggars, diseased in 
every conceivable manner, halting, groping, and crawling about 
in search of strangers of whom to implore charity — a contrast to 
the splendid pavement beneath and the gold and marble above 
and around, which would reconcile one to see the " mighty 
dome" melted into alms, and his holiness reduced to a plain 
chapel and a rusty cassock. 

Lifting the curtain I stood in the body of the church. There 
were perhaps twenty persons, at different distances, on its im- 
mense floor, the farthest off (six hundred and fourteen feet from 
me !) looking like a pigmy in the far perspective. St. Peter's is 
less like a church than a collection of large churches enclosed 
under a gigantic roof. The chapels at the sides are larger than 
most houses of public worship in our country, and of these there 
may be eight or ten, not included in the effect of the vast inte- 
rior. One is lost in it. It is a city of columns and sculpture 
and mosaic. Its walls are encrusted with precious stones and 
'masterly workmanship to the very top, and its wealth may be 
conceived when you remember that, standing in the centre and 
raising your eyes aloft, there are four hundred and forty feet be- 
tween you and the roof of the dome — the height, almost of a 
mountain. 

I walked up toward the tomb of St. Peter, passing in my way 
a solitary worshipper here and" there, upon his knees, and arrested 
constantly by the exquisite beauty of the statuary with which the 
columns are carved. Accustomed as we are in America, to 



THE FOUNTAINS— THE OBELISK. 381 



churches filled with pews, it is hardly possible to imagine the 
noble effect of a vast mosaic floor, unencumbered even with a 
chair, and only broken by a few prostrate figures, just specking 
its wide area. All Catholic churches are without fixed seats, and 
St. Peter's seems scarce measurable to the eye, it is so far and 
clear, from one extremity to the other. 

I passed the hundred lamps burning over the tomb of St. 
Peter, the lovely female statue (covered with a bronze drapery, 
because its exquisite beauty was thought dangerous to the mo- 
rality of the young priests), reclining upon the tomb of Paul III., 
the ethereal figures of Canova's geniuses weeping at the door of 
the tomb of the Stuarts (where sleeps the pretender Charles 
Edward), the thousand thousand rich and beautiful monuments 
of art and taste crowding every corner of this wondrous church 
— I passed them, I say, with the same lost and unexamining, un- 
particularizing feeling which I cannot overcome in this place — a 
mind borne quite off its feet and confused and overwhelmed with 
the tide of astonishment — the one grand impression of the whole. 
I dare say, a little more familiarity with St. Peter's will do away 
the feeling, but I left the church, after two hours loitering in its 
aisles, despairing, and scarce wishing to examine or make a note. 

Those beautiful fountains, moistening the air over the whole 
area of the column encircled front ! — and that tall Egyptian 
pyramid, sending up its slender and perfect spire between ! One 
lingers about, and turns again and again to gaze around him, as 
he leaves St. Peter's, in wonder and admiration. 

I crossed the Tiber, at the fortress-tomb of Adrian, and thrid- 
ding the long streets at the western end of Rome, passed through 
the Jews' quarter, and entered the Forum. The sun lay warm 
among the ruins of the great temples and columns of ancient 



3S2 THE FORUM— ITS MEMORIES. 



Rome, and, seating myself on a fragment of an antique frieze, 
near the noble arch of Septimius Severus, I gazed on the scene, 
for the first time, by daylight. I had been in Rome, on my first 
visit, during the full moon, and my impressions of the Forum 
with this romantic enhancement were vivid in my memory. One 
would think it enough to be upon the spot at any time, with 
light to see it, but what with modern excavations, fresh banks of 
earth, carts, boys playing at marbles, and wooden sentry-boxes, 
and what with the Parisian promenade, made by the French 
through the centre, the imagination is too disturbed and hindered 
in daylight. The moon gives it all one covering of gray and 
silver. The old columns stand up in all their solitary majesty, 
wrecks of beauty and taste ; silence leaves the fancy to find a 
voice for itself; and from the palaces of the Cesars to the prisons 
of the capitol, the whole train of emperors, senators,' conspira- 
tors, and citizens, are summoned with but half a thought and the 
magic glass is filled with moving and re-animated Rome. There, 
beneath those walls, on the right, in the Mamertine prisons, 
perished Jugurtha (and there, too, were imprisoned St. Paul and 
St. Peter), and opposite, upon the Palatine-hill, lived the mighty 
masters of Rome, in the " palaces of the Cesars," and beneath 
the majestic arch beyond, were led, as a seal of their slavery, the 
captives from Jerusalem, and in these temples, whose ruins cast 
their shadows at my feet, walked and discoursed Cicero and the 
philosophers, Brutus and the patriots, Catiline and the conspira- 
tors, Augustus and the scholars and poets, and the great stranger 
in Rome, St. Paul, gazing at the false altars, and burning in his 
heart to reveal to them the " unknown God." What men have 
crossed the shadows of these very columns ! and what thoughts, 
that have moved the world, have been born beneath them ! 



THE CENCI. 383 



The Barberini palace contains three or four masterpieces of 
painting. The most celebrated is the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, 
by Guido. The melancholy and strange history of this beautiful 
girl has been told in a variety of ways, and is probably familiar to 
every reader. Guido saw her on her way to execution, and has 
painted her as she was dressed, in the gray habit and head-dress 
made by her own hands, and finished but an hour before she put 
it on. There are engravings and copies of the picture all over 
the world, but none that I have seen give any idea of the 
excessive gentleness and serenity of the countenance. The eyes 
retain traces of weeping, but the child-like mouth, the soft, girlish 
lines of features that look as if they never had worn more than 
the one expression of youthfulness and affection, are all in repose, 
and the head is turned over the shoulder with as simple a sweet- 
ness as if she had but looked back to say a good-night before 
going to her chamber to sleep. She little looks like what she 
was — one ,of the firmest and boldest spirits whose history is re- 
corded. After murdering her father for his fiendish attempts 
upon her virtue, she endured every torture rather 4han disgrace 
her family by confession, and was only moved from her constancy, 
at last, by the agonies of her younger brother on the rack. Who 
would read capabilities like these, in these heavenly and child- 
like features ? 

I have tried to purchase the life of the Cenci, in vain. A 
bookseller told me to-day, that it was a forbidden book, on 
account of its reflections upon the pope. Immense interest was 
made for the poor girl, but, it is said, the papal treasury ran low, 
and if she was pardoned, the large possessions of the Cenci family 
could not have been confiscated. 

The gallery contains also, a delicious picture of the Fornarina 



384 CLAUDE'S PICTURES. 



by Raphael himself, and a portrait of Giorgione's mistress, as a 
Carthaginian slave, the same head multiplied so often in his and 
Titian's pictures. The original of the admirable picture of 
Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, is also here. A copy of it is in 
the gallery of Florence. 

I have passed a day between the two palaces Doria and Sciarra, 
nearly opposite each other in the Corso at Rome. The first is an 
immense gallery of perhaps a thousand pictures, distributed 
through seven large halls, and four galleries encircling the court. 
In the first four rooms I found nothing that struck me particu- 
larly. In the fifth was a portrait, by an unknown artist, of Olivia 
Waldachini, the favorite and sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X., 
a handsome woman, with that round fulness in the throat and 
neck, which (whether it existed in the originals, or is a part of 
a painter's ideal of a woman of pleasure), is universal in portraits 
of that character. In the same room was a portrait of a "cele- 
brated widow," by Vandyck,* a had-been beautiful woman, in a 
staid cap (the hands wonderfully painted), and a large and rich 
picture of Semiramis, by one of the Carraccis. 

In the galleries hung the landscapes by Claude, famous through 
the world. It is like roving through a paradise, to sit and look 
at them. His broad green lawns, his half-hidden temples, his 
life-like luxuriant trees, his fountains, his sunny streams — all 
flush into the eye like the bright opening of a Utopia, or some 
dream over a description from Boccaccio. It is what Italy might 

* So called in the catalogue. The custode, however, told us it was a por- 
trait of the wife of Vandyck, painted as an old woman to mortify her exces- 
sive vanity, when she was but twenty-three. He kept the picture until-she 
was older, and, at the time of his death, it had become a flattering likeness, 
and was carefully treasured by the widow. 



FANCIES REALIZED. 335 



be in a golden age — her ruins rebuilt into the transparent air, her 
woods unprofaned, her people pastoral and refined, and every 
valley a landscape of Arcadia. J can conceive no higher pleasure 
for the imagination than to see a Claude in travelling through 
Italy. It is finding a home for one's more visionary fancies — 
those children of moonshine that one begets in a colder clime, 
but scarce dares acknowledge till he has seen them under a more 
congenial sky. More plainly, one does not know whether his 
abstract imaginations of pastoral life and scenery are not ridicu- 
lous and unreal, till he has seen one of these landscapes, and felt 
steeped, if I may use such a word, in the very loveliness which 
inspired the pencil of the painter. There he finds the pastures, 
the groves, the fairy structures, the clear waters, the straying 
groups, the whole delicious scenery, as bright as in his dreams, 
and he feels as if he should bless the artist for the liberty to 
acknowledge freely to himself the possibility of so beautiful a 
world. 

We went on through the long galleries, going back again and 
again to see the Claudes. In the third division of the gallery 
were one or two small and bright landscapes, by Brill, that would 
have enchanted us if seen elsewhere ; and four strange pictures, 
by Breughel, representing the four elements, by a kind of half- 
poetical, half-supernatural landscapes, one of which had a very 
lovely view of a distant village. Then there was the famous 
picture of the "woman catching fleas" by Grherardodelle Notti, 
a perfect piece of life. She stands close to a lamp, with a vessel 
of hot water before her, and is just closing her thumb and finger 
over a flea, which she has detected on the bosom of her dress. 
Some eight or ten are boiling already in the water, and the 

expression upon the girl's face is that of the most grave and 
17 



3S6 THE LAST OF THE DORIAS. 



unconscious interest in her employment. Next to this amusing 
picture hangs a portrait of Queen GJiovanna, of Naples, by 
Leonardo da Vinci, a copy of which I had seen, much prized, in 
the possession of the archbishop of Torento. It scarce looks like 
the talented and ambitious queen she was, but it does full justice 
to her passion for amorous intrigue — a face full of the woman. 

The last picture we came to, was one not even mentioned in 
the catalogue, an old portrait of one of the females of the Doria 
family. It was a girl of eighteen, with a kind of face that in life 
must have been extremely fascinating. While we were looking 
at it, we heard a kind of gibbering laugh from the outer apart- 
ment, and an old man in a cardinal's dress, dwarfish in size, and 
with deformed and almost useless legs, came shuffling; into the 
gallery, supported by two priests. His features were imbecility 
itself, rendered almost horrible by the contrast of the cardinal's 
red cap. The custode took off his hat and bowed low, and the 
old man gave us a half-bow and a long laugh in passing, and dis- 
appeared at the end of the gallery. This was the Prince Doria, 
the owner of the palace, and a cardinal of Rome ! the sole 
remaining representative of one of the most powerful and ambi- 
tious families of Italy ! There could not be a more affecting type 
of the great "mistress of the world" herself. Her very children 
have dwindled into idiots. 

We crossed the Corso to the Palace Sciarra. The collection 
here is small, but choice. Half a dozen small but exquisite land- 
scapes, by Brill and Both, grace the second room. Here are also 
three small Claudes, very, very beautiful. In the next room is a 
finely-colored but most indecent picture of Noah intoxicated, by 
Andrea Sacchi, and a portrait by Griulio Romano, of Raphael's 



A PICTURE BY LEONARDO DA VINCI. 387 



celebrated Fornarina, to whose lovely face one becomes so 
accustomed in Italy, that it seems like that of an acquaintance. 

In the last room are two of the most celebrated pictures in 
Rome. The first is by Leonardo da Vinci, and represents 
Vanity and Modesty, by two females standing together in con- 
versation — one a handsome, gay, volatile looking creature, cover- 
ed with ornaments, and listening unwillingly to what seems a 
lecture from the other, upon her foibles. The face of the other 
is a heavenly conception of woman — earnest, delicate, and lovely 
— the idea one forms to himself, before intercourse with the 
world, gives him a distaste for its purity. The moral lesson of 
the picture is more forcible than language. The painter deserved 
to have died, as he did, in the arms of an emperor. 

The other picture represents two gamblers cheating a youth, a 
very striking picture of nature. It is common from the engravings. 
On the opposite side of the room, is a very expressive picture, by 
Schidone. On the ruins of an old tomb stands a scull, beneath 
which is written — " I, too, was of Arcadia ;" and, at a little 
distance, gazing at it in attitudes of earnest reflection, stand two 
shepherds, struck simultaneously with the moral. It is a poetical 
thought, and wrought out with great truth and skill. 



Our eyes aching and our attention exhausted with pictures, we 
drove from the Sciarra to the ruined palaces of the Cesars. 
Here, on an eminence above' the Tiber, with the Forum beneath 
us on one side, the Coliseum on the other, and all the towers- and 
spires of modern and Catholic Rome arising on her many hills 
beyond, we seated ourselves on fragments of marble, half buried 



388 PALACE OF THE CESARS. 



in the grass, and mused away the hours till sunset. On this spot 
Romulus founded Rome. The princely Augustus, in the last 
days of her glory, laid here the foundations of his imperial palace, 
which, continued by Caligula and Tiberius, and completed by 
Domitian, covered the hill, like a small city. It was a labyrinth 
of temples, baths, pavilions, fountains, and gardens, with a large 
theatre at the western extremity ; and adjoining the temple of 
Apollo, was a library filled with the best authors, and ornamented 
with a colossal bronze statue of Apollo, " of excellent Etruscan 
workmanship." " Statues of the fifty daughters of Danaus Siur- 
amdert surrounded the portico" (of this same temple), "and 
opposite them were equestrian statues of their husbands." About 
a hundred years ago, accident discovered, in the gardens buried 
in rubbish, a magnificent hall, two hundred feet in length and 
one hundred and thirty -two in breadth, supposed to have been 
built by Domitian. It was richly ornamented with statues, and 
columns of precious marbles, and near it were baths in excellent 
preservation. u But," says Stark, "immense and superb as was 
this first-built palace of the Cesars, Nero, whose extravagance 
and passion for architecture knew no limits, thought it much too 
small for him, and extended its edifices and gardens from the 
Palatine to the Esquiline. After the destruction of the whole, 
by fire, sixty-five years after Christ, he added to it his celebrated 
* Golden House,' which extended from one extremity to the other 
of the Coelian Hill."* 

The ancient walls, which made the whole of the Mount Palatine 

* The following description is given of this splendid palace, by Suetonius. 

u To give an idea of the extent and beauty of this edifice, it is sufficient to 

mention, that in its vestibule was placed his colossal statue, one hundred and 

twenty feet in height. It had a triple portico, supported by a thousand 



AN HOUR ON THE PALATINE. 389 



a fortress, still hold together its earth and its ruins. It is a broad 
tabular eminence, worn into footpaths which wind at every moment 
around broken shafts of marble, fragments of statuary, or broken 
and ivy-covered fountains. Part of it is cultivated as a vineyard, 
by the degenerate modern Komans, and the baths, into which the 
water still pours from aqueducts encrusted with aged stalactites 
are public washing-places for the contadini, eight or ten of whom 
were splashing away in their red jackets, with gold bodkins in 
their hair, while we were moralizing on their worthier progenitors 
of eighteen centuries ago. It is a beautiful spot of itself, and 
with the delicious soft sunshine of an Italian spring, the tall green 
grass beneath our feet, and an air as soft as June just stirring 
the myrtles and jasmines, growing wild wherever the ruins gave 
them place, our enjoyment of the overpowering associations of 
the spot was ample and untroubled. I could wish every refined 
spirit in the world had shared our pleasant hour upon the Pala- 
tine. 

columns .- with a lake like a little sea, surrounded by buildings which resem- 
bled cities. It contained pasture-grounds and groves in which were all 
descriptions of animals, wild and tame. Its interior shone with gold, gems, 
and mother-of-pearl. In the vaulted roofs of the eating-rooms were 
machines of ivory, which turned round and scattered perfumes upon the 
guests. The principal banqueting room was a rotunda, so constructed that 
it turned round night and day, in imitation of the motion of the earth. 
When Nero took possession of this fairy palace, his only observation was — 
" Now I shall begin to live like a man." 



LETTER LVI. 

ANNUAL DOWRIES TO TWELVE GIRLS VESPERS IN THE CONVENT 

OF SANTA TRINITA RUINS OF ROMAN BATHS A MAGNIFICENT 

MODERN CHURCH WITHIN TWO ANCIENT HALLS GARDENS OF 

MEC^ENAS TOWER WHENCE NERO SAW ROME ON FIRE HOUSES 

OF HORACE AND VIRGIL BATHS OF TITUS AND CARACALLA. 

The yearly ceremony of giving dowries to twelve girls, was 
performed by the Pope, this morning, in the church built over 
the ancient temple of Minerva. His Holiness arrived, in state, 
from the Vatican, at ten, followed by his red troop of cardinals, 
and preceded by a clerical courier, on a palfrey, and the body- 
guard of nobles. He blessed the crowd, right and left, with his 
three fingers (precisely as a Parisian dandy salutes his friend 
across the street), and, descending from his carriage ( which is 
like a good-sized glass boudoir upon wheels), he was received in 
the papal sedan, and carried into the church by his Swiss bearers, 
My legation button carried me through the guard, and I found 
an excellent place under a cardinal's wing, in the penetralia 
within the railing of the altar. Mass commenced presently, with 
a chant from the celebrated choir of St. Peter's. Room was 
then made through the crowd, the cardinals put on their red 



ROMAN EYES VERSUS FEET. 391 



caps, and the small procession of twelve young girls entered from 
a side chapel, bearing each a taper in her hand, and robed to tho 
eyes in white, with a chaplet of flowers round the forehead. I 
could form no judgment of anything but their eyes and feet. A 
Roman eye could not be otherwise than fine, and a Roman 
woman's foot could scarce be other than ugly, and, consequently, 
there was but one satin slipper in the group that a man might 
not have worn, and every eye I could see from my position, 
might have graced an improvisatrice. They stopped in front of 
the throne, and, giving their long tapers to the servitors, mounted 
in couples, hand in hand, and kissed the foot of his Holiness, who, 
at the same time, leaned over and blessed them, and then turning 
about, walked off again behind the altar in the same order in which 
they had entered. 

The choir now struck up their half-unearthly chant (a music 
so strangely shrill and clear, that I scarce know whether the 
sensation is pleasure or pain), the Pope was led from his throne 
to his sedan, and his mitre changed for a richly jewelled crown, 
the bearers lifted their burden, the guard presented arms, the 
cardinals summoned their officious servants to unrobe, and the 
crowd poured out as it came. 

This ceremony, I found upon inquiry, is performed every 
year, on the day of the annunciation — just nine months before 
Christmas, and is intended to commemorate the incarnation of 
our Saviour. 



As I was returning from a twilight stroll upon the Pincian hill, 
this evening, the bells of the convent of Santa Trinita rune to 



392 VESPERS AT SANTA TRINITA. 



vespers. I had heard of the singing of the nuns in the service at 
the convent chapel, but the misbehavior of a party of English 
had excluded foreigners, of late, and it was thought impossible to 
get admittance. I mounted the steps, however, and rung at the 
door. It was opened by a pale nun, of thirty, who hesitated a 
moment, and let me pass. In a small, plain chapel within, the 
service of the altar was just commencing, and, before I reached 
a seat, a low plaintive chant commenced, in female voices from 
the choir. It went on with occasional interruptions from the 
prayers, for perhaps an hour. I can not describe the excessive 
mournfulness of the music. One or two familiar hymns occurred 
in the course of it, like airs in a recitative, the same sung in our 
churches, but the effect was totally different. The neat, white 
caps of the nuns were just visible over the railing before the 
organ, and, as I looked up at them and listened to their melan- 
choly notes, they seemed, to me, mourning over their exclusion 
from the world. The small white cloud from the censer mounted 
to the ceiling, and creeping away through the arches, hung over 
the organ till it was lost to the eye in the dimness of the twilight. 
It was easy, under the influence of their delightful music, to 
imagine within it the wings of that tranquilizing resignation, one 
would think so necessary to keep down the heart in these lonely 
cloisters. 



The most considerable ruins of ancient Rome are those of the 
Baths. The Emperors Titus, Caracalla, Nero, and Agrippa, 
constructed these immense places of luxury, and the remains of 
them are amon^ the most interesting and beautiful relics to be 



ROMAN BATHS. 393 



found in the world. It is possible that my readers have as im- 
perfect an idea of the extent of a Roman bath as I have had, 
and I may as well quote from the information given by writers on 
antiquities. " They were open every day, to both sexes. In 
each of the great baths, there were sixteen hundred seats of mar- 
ble, for the convenience of the bathers, and three thousand two 
hundred persons could bathe at the same time. There were 
splendid porticoes in front for promenade, arcades with shops, in 
which was found every kind of luxury for the bath, and halls for 
corporeal exercises, and for the discussion of philosophy ; and 
here the poets read their productions and rhetoricians harangued, 
and sculptors and painters exhibited their works to the public. 
The baths were distributed into grand halls, with ceilings enor- 
mously high and painted with admirable frescoes, supported on 
columns of the rarest marble, and the basins were of oriental ala- 
baster, porphyry, and jasper. There were in the centre vast 
reservoirs, for the swimmers, and crowds of slaves to attend gra- 
tuitously upon all who should come." 

The baths of Diocletian (which I visited to-day), covered an 
enormous space. They occupied seven years in building, and 
were the work of forty thousand Christian slaves , two thirds of 
whom died of fatigue and misery ! Mounting one of the seven 
hills of Rome, we come to some half-ruined arches, of enormous 
size, extending a long distance, in the sides of which were built 
two modern churches. One was the work of Michael Angelo, 
and one of his happiest efforts. He has turned two of the ancient 
halls into a magnificent church, in the shape of a Greek cross, 
leaving in their places eight gigantic columns of granite. After 
St. Peter's it is the most imposing church in Rome. 

We drove thence to the baths of Titus, passing the site of the 
17* 



394 BATHS OF TITUS. 



ancient gardens of Macaenas, in which still stands the tower from 
which Nero beheld the conflagration of Rome. The houses of 
Horace and Virgil communicated with this garden, but they are 
now undistinguishable. We turned up from the Coliseum to the 
left, and entered a gate leading to the baths of Titus. Five or 
six immense arches presented their front to us, in a state of pic- 
turesque ruin. We took a guide, and a long pole, with a lamp 
at the extremity, and descended to the subterranean halls, to see 
the still inimitable frescoes upon the ceilings. Passing through 
vast apartments, to the ruined walls of which still clung, here 
and there, pieces of the finely-colored stucco of the ancients, we 
entered a suite of long galleries, some forty feet high, the arched 
roofs of which were painted with the most exquisite art, in a kind 
of fanciful border-work, enclosing figures and landscapes, in as 
bright colors as if done yesterday. Farther on was the niche in 
which was found the famous group of Laocoon, in a room belong- 
ing to a subterranean palace of the emperor, communicating with 
the baths. The Belvedeve Meleager was also found here. The 
imagination loses itself in attempting to conceive the splendor of 
these under-ground palaces, blazing with artificial light, orna- 
mented with works of art, never equalled, and furnished with all 
the luxury which an emperor of Rome, in the days when the 
wealth of the world flowed into her treasury, could command for 
his pleasure. How short life must have seemed to them, and 
what a tenfold curse became death and the common ills of exist- 
ence, interrupting or taking away pleasures so varied and inex- 
haustible. 

These baths were built in the last great days of Rome, and 
one reads the last stages of national corruption and. perhaps, the 
secret of her fall, in the character of these ornamented walls. 



SHELLEY'S HAUNT. 395 



They breathe the very spirit of voluptuousness. Naked female 
figures fill every plafond, and fauns and satyrs, with the most 
licentious passions in their faces, support the festoons and hold 
together the intricate ornament of the frescoes. The statues, 
the pictures, the object of the place itself, inspired the wish for 
indulgence, and the history of the private lives of the emperors 
and wealthier Romans shows the effect in its deepest colors. 

We went on to the baths of Caracalla, the largest ruins of 
Rome. They are just below the palaces of the Cesars, and ten 
minutes' walk from the Coliseum. It is one labyrinth of gigantic 
arches and ruined halls, the ivy growing and clinging wherever it 
can fasten its root, and the whole as fine a picture of decay as 
imagination could create. This was the favorite haunt of Shel- 
ley, and here he wrote his fine tragedy of Prometheus. He 
could not have selected a more fitting spot for solitary thought. 
A herd of goats were climbing over one of the walls, and the 
idle boy who tended them lay asleep in the sun, and every foot- 
step echoed loud through the place. We passed two or three 
hours rambling about, and regained the populous streets of Rome 
in the last light of the sunset. 



LETTER LVI1. 

SUMMER WEATHER IN MARCH BATHS OF CARACALLA BEGINNING 

OF THE APPIAN WAY TOMB OF THE SCIPIOS CATACOMBS 

CHURCH OF SAN SEBASTIANO YOUNG CAPUCHIN FRIAR 

TOMBS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN MARTYRS CHAMBER WHERE 

THE APOSTLES WORSHIPPED TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA THE 

CAMPAGNA CIRCUS OF CARACALLA OR ROMULUS TEMPLE 

DEDICATED TO RIDICULE KEATS's GRAVE FOUNTAIN OF EGE- 

RIA THE WOOD WHERE XUM.V MET THE NYMPH HOLY WEEK. 

The last days of March have come, clothed in sunshine and 
summer. The grass is tall in the Campagna, the fruit-trees 
are in blossom, the roses and myrtles are in full flower, the 
shrubs are in full leaf, the whole country about breathes of June. 
We left Rome this morning on an excursion to the " Fountain 
of Egeria." A more heavenly day never broke. The gigantic 
baths of Caracalla turned us aside once more, and we stopped 
for an hour in the shade of their romantic arches, admiring 
the works, while we execrated the character of their ferocious 
builder. 

This is the beginning of the ancient Appian Way, and, a little 



THE TOMB OF THE SCIPIOS. 397 



farther on, sunk in the side of a hill near the road, is the beau- 
tiful doric tomb of the Scipios. We alighted at the antique gate, 
a kind of portico, with seats of stone beneath, and reading the 
inscription, " Sepulchro degli Scipioni," mounted by ruined 
steps to the tomb. A boy came out from the house, in the vine- 
yard above, with candles, to show us the interior, but, having no 
curiosity to see the damp cave from which the sarcophagi have 
been removed (to the museum), we sat dawn upon a bank of 
grass opposite the chaste fa§ade, and recalled to memory the 
early-learnt history of the family once entombed within. The 
edifice (for it is more like a temple to a river-nymph or a dryad 
than a tomb) was built by an ancestor of the great Scipio Afri- 
canus, and here was deposited the noble dust of his children. 
One feels, in these places, as if the improvisatore's inspiration 
was about him — the fancy draws, in such vivid colors, the scenes 
that have passed where he is standing. The bringing of the 
dead body of the conqueror of Africa from Rome, the passing of 
the funeral train beneath the portico, the noble mourners, the 
crowd of people, the eulogy of perhaps some poet or orator, 
whose name has descended to us — the air seems to speak, and 
the gray stones of the monument against which the mourners of 
the Scipios have leaned, seem to have had life and thought, like 
the ashes they have sheltered. 

We drove on to the Catacombs. Here, the legend says, St. 
Sebastian was martyred and the modern church of St. Sebasti- 
ano stands over the spot. We entered the church, where we 
found a very handsome young capuchin friar, with his brown 
cowl and the white cord about his waist, who offered to conduct 
us to the catacombs. He took three wax-lights from the sac- 
risty, and we entered a side door, behind the tomb of the saint, 



398 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 



and commenced a descent of a long flight of stone steps. We 
reached the bottom and found ourselves upon damp ground, fol- 
lowing a narrow passage, so low that I was compelled constantly 
to stoop, in the sides of which were numerous small niches of the 
size of a human body. These were the tombs of the early Chris- 
tian martyrs. We saw near a hundred of them. They were 
brought from Rome, the scene of their sufferings, and buried in 
these secret catacombs by the small church of, perhaps, the im- 
mediate converts of St. Paul and the apostles. What food for 
thought is here, for one who finds more interest in the humble 
traces of the personal followers of Christ, who knew his face and 
had heard his voice, to all the splendid ruins of the works of the 
persecuting emperors of his time ! Most of the bones have been 
taken from their places, and are preserved at the museum, or 
enclosed in the rich sarcophagi raised to the memory of the mar- 
tyrs in the Catholic churches. Of those that are left we saw one. 
The niche was closed by a thin slab of marble, through a crack 
of which the monk put his slender candle. We saw the skeleton 
as it had fallen from the flesh in decay, untouched, perhaps, since 
the time of Christ. 

We crossed through several cross-passages, and came to a 
small chamber, excavated simply in the earth, with an earthern 
altar, and an antique marble cross above. This was the scene 
of the forbidden worship of the early Christians, and before this 
very cross, which was, perhaps, then newly selected as the em- 
blem of their faith, met the few dismayed followers of Christ, 
hidden from their persecutors, while they breathed their forbid- 
den prayers to their lately crucified Master. 

We reascended to the light of day by the rough stone steps, 
worn deep by the feet of those who, for ages, for so many different 



THE TOMB OF METELLA. 399 



reasons, have passed up and down ; and, taking leave of our 
capuchin conductor, drove on to the next object upon the road-— 
the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It stands upon a slight elevation, 
in the Appian Way, a " stern round tower," with the ivy drop- 
ping over its turrets and waving from the embrasures, looking 
more like a castle than a tomb. Here was buried " the wealthiest 
Roman's wife," or, according to Corinne, his unmarried daughter. 
It was turned into a fortress by the marauding nobles of the thir- 
teenth century, who sallied from this and the tomb of Adrian, 
plundering the ill-defended subjects of Pope Innocent IV. till 
they were taken and hanged from the walls by Branealeone, the 
Roman senator. It is built with prodigious strength. We 
stooped in passing under the low archway, and emerged into the 
round chamber within, a lofty room, open to the sky, in the cir- 
cular wall of which there is a niche for a single body. Nothing 
could exceed the delicacy and fancy with which Childe Harold 
muses on this spot. 

The lofty turrets command a wide view of the Campagna, the 
long aqueducts stretching past at a short distance, and forming a 
chain of noble arches from Rome to the mountains of Alba'no. 
Cole's picture of the Roman Campagna, as seen from one of these 
elevations, is, I think, one of the finest landscapes ever painted. 

Just below the tomb of Metella, in a flat valley, lie the exten- 
sive ruins of what is called the " circus of Caracalla" by some, 
and the " circus of Romulus" by others — a scarcely distinguisha- 
ble heap of walls and marble, half buried in the earth and moss ; 
and not far off stands a beautiful ruin of a small temple dedicated 
(as some say) to Ridicule. One smiles to look at it. If the 
embodying of that which is powerful, however, should make a 
deity, the dedication of a temple to ridicule is far from amiss. In 



400 FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA. 



our age particularly, one would think, the lamp should be relit, 
and the reviewers should repair the temple. Poor Keats sleeps 
in his grave scarce a mile from the spot, a human victim sacri- 
ficed, not long ago, upon its highest altar. 

In the same valley almost hidden with the luxuriant ivy wav- 
ing before the entrance, flows the lovely Fountain of .Egeria, 
trickling as clear and musical into its pebbly bed as when visited 
by the enamored successor of Romulus twenty-five centuries ago ! 
The hill above leans upon the single arch of the small temple 
which embosoms it, and the green soft meadow spreads away 
from the floor, with the brightest verdure . conceivable. "We 
wound around by a half- worn path in descending the hill, and, 
putting aside the long branches of ivy, entered an antique cham- 
ber, sprinkled with quivering spots of sunshine, at the extremity 
of which, upon a kind of altar, lay the broken and defaced statue 
of the nymph. The fountain poured from beneath in two 
streams as clear as crystal. In the sides of the temple were six 
empty niches, through one of which stole, from a cleft in the 
wall, a little stream, which wandered from its way. Flowers, 
pale with growing in the shade, sprang from the edges of the 
rivulet as it found its way out, the small creepers, dripping with 
moisture, hung out from between the diamond-shaped stones 
of the roof, the air was refreshingly cool, and the leafy door 
at the entrance, seen against the sky, looked of a transparent 
green, as vivid as emerald. No fancy could create a sweeter 
spot. The fountain and the inspiration it breathed into Childe 
Harold are worthy of each other. 

Just above the fountain, on the crest of a hill, stands a thick 
grove, supposed to occupy the place of the consecrated wood, in 
which Numa met the nymph. It is dark with shadow, and full 



CHANGED ASPECT OF ROME. 401 



of birds, and might afford a fitting retreat for meditation to an- 
other king and lawgiver. The fields about it are so thickly stud- 
ded with flowers, that you cannot step without crushing them, 
and the whole neighborhood seems a favorite of nature. The 
rich banker, Torlonia, has bought this and several other classic 
spots about Rome — possessions for which he is more to be envied 
than for his purchased dukedom. 

All the travelling world assembles at Rome for the ceremonies 
of the holy week. Naples, Florence, and Pisa, send their hun- 
dreds of annual visitors, and the hotels and palaces are crowded 
with strangers of every nation and rank. It would be difficult to 
imagine a gayer or busier place than this usually sombre city has 
become within a few days. 



LETTER L V 1 1 1 . 

PALM SUNDAY SISTINE CHAPEL ENTRANCE OF THE POPE 

THE CHOIR THE POPE ON HIS THRONE PRESENTING THE 

PALMS PROCESSION BISHOP ENGLAND^ LECTURE HOLY 

TUESDAY THE MISERERE ACCIDENTS IN THE CROWD 

. TENEBRiE THE EMBLEMATIC CANDLES HOLY THURSDAY 

FRESCOES OF MICHAEL ANGELO U CREATION OF EVE" " LOT 

INTOXICATED" DELPHIC SYBIL POPE WASHING PILGRIMS' 

FEET STRIKING RESEMBLANCE OF ONE TO JUDAS POPE AND 

CARDINALS WAITING UPON PILGRIMS AT DINNER. 

Palm Sunday opens the ceremonies. We drove to the Vati- 
can this morning, at nine, and, after waitiDg a half hour in the 
crush, kept back, at the point of the spear, by the Pope's Swiss 
guard, I succeeded in getting an entrance into the Sistine chapel. 
Leaving the ladies of the party behind the grate, I passed two 
more guards, and obtained a seat among the cowled and bearded 
dignitaries of the church and state within, where I could observe 
the ceremony with ease. 

The Pope entered, borne in his gilded chair by twelve men, 
and, at the same moment, the chanting from the Sistine choir 



PALM SUNDAY. 403 



commenced with one long, piercing note, by a single voice, pro- 
ducing the most impressive effect. He mounted his throne as 
high as the altar opposite him, and the cardinals went through 
their obeisances, one by one, their trains supported by their ser- 
vants, who knelt on the lower steps behind them. The palms 
stood in a tall heap beside the altar. They were beautifully 
woven in wands of perhaps six feet in length, with a cross at the 
top. The cardinal nearest the papal chair mounted first, and a 
palm was handed him. He laid it across the knees of the Pope, 
and, as his holiness signed the cross upon it, he stooped, and 
kissed the embroidered cross upon his foot, then kissed the palm, 
and taking it in his two hands, descended with it to his seat. 
The other forty or fifty cardinals did the same, until each was 
provided with a palm. Some twenty other persons, monks of 
apparent clerical rank of every order, military men, and mem- 
bers of the Catholic embassies, followed and took palms. A pro- 
cession was then formed, the cardinals going first with their 
palms held before them, and the Pope following, in his chair, 
with a small frame of palmwork in his hands, in which was woven 
the initial of the Virgin. They passed out of the Sistine chapel, 
the choir chanting most delightfully, and, having made a tour 
around the vestibule, returned in the same order. 

The ceremony is intended to represent the entrance of the 
Saviour into Jerusalem. Bishop England, of Charleston, South 
Carolina, delivered a lecture at the house of the English cardinal 
Weld, a day or two ago, explanatory of the ceremonies of the 
Holy week. It was principally an apology for them. He con- 
fessed that, to the educated, they appeared empty, and even 
absurd rites, but they were intended not for the refined, but the 
vulgar, whom it was necessary to instruct and impress through 



404 A CROWD. 



their outward senses. As nearly all these rites, however, take 
place in the Sistine chapel, which no person is permitted to enter 
who is not furnished with a ticket, and in full dress, his argument 
rather fell to the ground. 

With all the vast crowd of strangers in Rome, I went to the 
Sistine chapel on Holy Tuesday, to hear the far-famed Miserere.. 
It is sung several times during the holy week, by the Pope's 
choir, and has been described by travellers, of all nations, in the 
most rapturous terms. The vestibule was a scene of shocking 
confusion, for an hour, a constant struggle going on between the 
crowd and the Swiss guard, amounting occasionally to a fight, in 
which ladies fainted, children screamed, men swore, and, unless 
by force of contrast, the minds of the audience seemed likely to 
be little in tune for the music. The chamberlains at last arrived, 
and two thousand people attempted to get into a small chapel 
which scarce holds four hundred. Coat-skirts, torn cassocks, 
hats, gloves, and fragments of ladies' dresses, were thrown up by 
the suffocating throng, and, in the midst of a confusion beyond 
description, the mournful notes of the tenebrce (or lamentations of 
Jeremiah) poured in full volume from the choir. Thirteen can- 
dles burned in a small pyramid within the paling of the altar, and 
twelve of these, representing the apostles, were extinguished, one 
by one (to signify their desertion at the cross), during the sing- 
ing of the tenebrce. The last, which was left burning, repre- 
sented the mother of Christ. As the last before this was extin- 
guished, the music ceased. The crowd had, by this time, become 
quiet. The twilight had deepened through the dimly-lit chapel, 
and the one solitary lamp looked lost at the distance of the altar. 
Suddenly the miserere commenced with one high prolonged note, 
that sounded like a wail; another joined it, an 1 another and an- 



THE MISERERE. 405 



other, and all the different parts came in, with a gradual swell of 
plaintive and most thrilling harmony, to the full power of the 
choir. It continued for perhaps half an hour. The music was 
simple, running upon a few notes, like a dirge, but there were 
voices in the choir that seemed of a really supernatural sweet- 
ness. No instrument could be so clear. The crowd, even in 
their uncomfortable positions, were breathless with attention, and 
the effect was universal. It is really extraordinary music, and 
if but half the rites of the Catholic church had its power over the 
mind, a visit to Rome would have quite another influence. 

The candles were lit, and the motley troop of cardinals and 
red-legged servitors passed out. The harlequin-looking Swiss 
guard stood to their tall halberds, the chamberlains and mace- 
bearers, in their cassock and frills, took care that the males and 
females should not mix until they reached the door, the Pope 
disappeared in the sacristy, and the gay world, kept an hour be- 
yond their time, went home to cold dinners. 



The ceremonies of Holy Thursday commenced with the mass 
in the Sistine chapel. Tired of seeing genuflections, and listen- 
ing to a mumbling of which I could not catch a syllable, I took 
advantage of my privileged seat, in the Ambassador's box, to 
lean back and study the celebrated frescoes of Michael Angelo 
upon the ceiling. A little drapery would do no harm to any of 
them. They illustrate, mainly, passages of scripture history, but 
the " creation of Eve," in the centre, is an astonishingly fine 
representation of a naked man and woman, as large as life ; and 
H Lot intoxicated and exposed before his two daughters," is 



406 A JUDAS. 



about as immodest a picture, from its admirable expression as 
well as its nudity, as could easily be drawn. In one corner there 
is a most beautiful draped figure of the Delphic Sybil — and I 
think this bit of heathenism is almost the only very decent part 
of the Pope's most consecrated chapel. 

After the mass, the host was carried, with a showy procession, 
to be deposited among the thousand lamps in the Capella Paolina, 
and, as soon as it had passed, there was a general rush for the 
room in which the Pope was to wash the, feet of the pilgrims. 

Thirteen men, dressed in white, with sandals open at the top, 
and caps of paper covered with white linen, sat on a high bench, 
just under a beautiful copy of the last supper of Da Vinci, in 
gobelin tapestry. It was a small chapel, communicating with 
the Pope's private apartments. Eleven of the pilgrims were as 
vulgar and brutal-looking men as could have been found in the 
world ; but of the two in the centre, one was the personification 
of wild fanaticism. He was pale, emaciated, and abstracted. 
His hair and beard were neglected, and of a singular blackness. 
His lips were firmly set in an expression of severity. His brows 
were gathered gloomily over his eyes, and his glances, occasion- 
ally sent among the crowd, were as glaring and flashing as a 
tiger's. With all this, his countenance was lofty, and if I had 
seen the face on canvas, as a portrait of a martyr, I should have 
thought it finely expressive of courage and devotion. The man 
on his left wept, or pretended to weep, continually ; but every 
person in the room was struck with his extraordinary resemblance 
to Judas, as he is drawn in the famous picture of the Last Supper. 
It was the same marked face, the same treacherous, ruffian look, 
the same style of hair and beard, to a wonder. It is possible 
that he might have been chosen on purpose, the twelve pilgrims 



THE WASHING OF THE FEET. 407 



being intended to represent the twelve apostles of whom Judas 
was one — but if accidental, it was the most remarkable coinci- 
dence that ever came under my notice. He looked the hypocrite 
and traitor complete, and his resemblance to the Judas in the 
picture directly over his head, would have struck a child. 

The Pope soon entered from his apartments, in a purple stole, 
with a cape of dark crimson satin, and the mitre of silver-cloth, 
and, casting the incense into the golden censer, the white smoke 
was flung from side to side before him, till the delightful odor 
filled the room. A short service was then chanted, and the choir 
sang a hymn. His Holiness was then unrobed, and a fine napkin, 
trimmed with lace, was tied about him by the servitors, and with 
a deacon before him, bearing a splendid pitcher and basin, and a 
procession behind him, with large bunches of flowers, he crossed 
to the pilgrims' bench. A priest, in a snow-white tunic, raised 
and bared the foot of the first. The Pope knelt, took water in 
his hand, and slightly rubbed the instep, and then drying it well 
with a napkin, he kissed it. 

The assistant-deacon gave a large bunch of flowers and a napkin 
to the pilgrim, as the Pope left him, and another person in rich 
garments, followed, with pieces of money presented in a wrapper 
of white paper. The same ceremony took place with each — one 
foot only being honored with a lavation. When his Holiness 
arrived at the " Judas," there was a general stir, and every one 
was on tip-toe to watch his countenance. He took his handker- 
chief from his eyes, and looked at the Pope very earnestly, and 
when the ceremony was finished, he seized the sacred hand, and, 
imprinting a kiss upon it, flung himself back, and buried his face 
again in his handkerchief, quite overwhelmed with his feelings. 
The other pilgrims took it very coolly, comparatively, and one 



408 TEE DINNER. 



of them seemed rather amused than edified. The Pope returned 
to his throne, and water was poured over his hands. A cardinal 
gave him a napkin, his splendid cape was put again over his 
shoulders, and, with a paternoster the ceremony was over. 

Half an hour after, with much crowding and several losses of 
foothold and temper, I had secured a place in the hall where the 
apostles, as the pilgrims are called after the washing, were to 
dine, waited on by the Pope and cardinals. With their gloomy 
faces and ghastly white caps and white dresses, they looked more 
like criminals waiting for execution, than guests at a feast. They 
stood while the Pope went round with a gold pitcher and basin, 
to wash their hands, and then seating themselves, his Holiness, 
with a good-natured smile, gave each a dish of soup, and said 
something in his ear, which had the effect of putting him at his 
ease. The table was magnificently set out with the plate and 
provisions of a prince's table, and spite of the thousands of eyes 
gazing on them, the pilgrims were soon deep in the delicacies of 
every dish, even the lachrymose Judas himself, eating most vora- 
ciously. We left them at their dessert. 



LETTER LIX. 

SEPULCHRE OF CAIUS CESTIUS PROTESTANT BURYING GROUND 

GRAVES OF KEATS AND SHELLEY SHELLEY'S LAMENT OVER 

KEATS GRAVES OF TWO AMERICANS BEAUTY OF THE BURIAL 

PLACE MONUMENTS OVER TWO INTERESTING YOUNG FEMALES 

INSCRIPTION ON KEATS' MONUMENT THE STYLE OF KEATS* 

POEMS GRAVE OF DR. BELL RESIDENCE AND LITERARY 

UNDERTAKINGS OF HIS WIDOW. 

A beautiful pyramid, a hundred and thirteen feet high, built 
into the ancient wall of Rome, is the proud Sepulchre of Cants 
Cestius. It is the most imperishable of the antiquities, standing 
as perfect after eighteen hundred years as if it were built but 
yesterday. Just beyond it, on the declivity of a hill, over the 
ridge of which the wall passes, crowning it with two mouldering 
towers, lies the Protestant burying- ground. It looks toward 
Rome, which appears in the distance, between Mount Aventine 
and a small hill called Mont Testaccio, and leaning to the south- 
east, the sun lies warm and soft upon its banks, and the grass 
and wild flowers are there the earliest and tallest of the Cam- 
pagna. I have been here to-day, to see the graves of Keats and 
IS 



410 THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY. 



Shelley. With a cloudless sky and the most delicious air ever 
breathed, we sat down upou the marble slab laid over the ashes 
of poor Shelley, and read his own lament over Keats, who sleeps 
just below, at the foot of the hill. The cemetery is rudely 
formed into three terraces, with walks between, and Shelley's 
grave and one other, without a name, occupy a small nook above, 
made by the projections of a mouldering wall-tower, and crowded 
with ivy and shrubs, and a peculiarly fragrant yellow flower, 
which perfumes the air around for several feet. The avenue by 
which you ascend from the gate is lined with high bushes of the 
marsh-rose in the most luxuriant bloom, and all over the ceme- 
tery the grass is thickly mingled with flowers of every die. In 
his preface to his lament over Keats, Shelley says, " he was 
buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants, 
under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy 
walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed 
the circuit of ancient Rome. It is an open space among the 
ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. " It might 
make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in 
so sweet a place." If Shelley had chosen his own grave at the 
time, he would have selected the very spot where he has since 
been laid — the most sequestered and flowery nook of the place he 
describes so feelingly. In the last verses of the elegy, he speaks 
of it again with the same feeling of its beauty : — 

• 

" The spirit of the spot shall lead 

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, 

Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, 
A light of laughing tlowers along the grass is spread. 

" And gray walls moulder round, on which dull time 
Feeds like slow fire upon a hoary brand: 



SHELLEY'S GRAVE. 4H 



And one keen pyramid, with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath 
Afield is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched, in heaven's smile, their camp of death, 
Welcoming him we lose, with scarce extinguished breath." 

" Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each.'''' 

Shelley has left no poet behind, who could write so touchmgly 
of his burial-place in turn. He was, indeed, as they have graven 
on his tombstone, " cor cordimn" — the heart of hearts. Dread- 
fully mistaken as he was in his principles, he was no less the soul 
of genius than the model of a true heart and of pure intentions. 
Let who will cast reproach upon his memory, I believe, for one, 
that his errors were of the kind most venial in the eye of Heaven, 
and I read, almost like a prophesy, the last lines of his elegy on 
one he believed had gone before him to a happier world : 

" Burning through the inmost veil of heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are." 

On the second terrace of the declivity, are ten or twelve 
graves, two of which bear the names of Americans who have died 
in Rome. A portrait carved in bas-relief, upon one of the slabs, 
told me, without the inscription, that one whom I had known was 
buried beneath.* The slightly rising mound was covered with 
small violets, half hidden by the grass. It takes away from the 

* Mr. John Hone, of New York. 



412 BEAUTY OF THE PLACE. 

pain with which one stands over the grave of an acquaintance or 
a friend, to see the sun lying so warm upon it, and the flowers 
springing so -profusely and cheerfully. Nature seems to have 
cared for those who have died so far from home, binding the 
earth gently over them with grass, and decking it with the most 
delicate flowers. 

A little to the left, on the same bank, is the new-made grave 
of a very young man, Mr. Elliot. He came abroad for health, 
and died at Rome, scarce two months since. Without being 
disgusted with life, one feels, in a place like this, a certain 
reconciliation, if I may so express it, with the thought of a 
burial— an almost willingness, if his bed could be laid amid such 
loveliness, to be brought and left here to his repose. Purely 
imaginary as any difference in this circumstance is, it must, at 
least, always affect the sick powerfully ; and with the common 
practice of sending the dying to Italy, as a last hope, I consider 
the exquisite beauty of this place of burial, as more than a com- 
mon accident of happiness. 

Farther on, upon the same terrace, are two monuments that 
interested me. One marks the grave of a young English girl * 
the pride of a noble family, and, as a sculptor told me, who had 
often seen and admired her, a model of high-born beauty. She 
was riding with a party on the banks of the Tiber, when her 
horse became unmanageable, and backed into the river. She 
sank instantly, and was swept so rapidly away by the current, 
that her body was not found for many months. Her tombstone 
is adorned with a bas-relief, representing an angel receiving her 
from the waves. 

* An interesting account of this ill-fated young lady, who was on the eve 
of marriage, has appeared in the Mirror. 



KEATS. 413 

The other is the grave of a young lady of twenty, who was at 
the baths of Lucca, last summer, in pursuit of health. She died 
at the first approach of winter. I had the melancholy pleasure 
of knowing her slightly, and we used to meet her in the winding 
path upon the bank of the romantic river Lima, at evening, 
borne in a sedan, with her mother and sister walking at her side, 
the fairest victim consumption ever seized. She had all the 
peculiar beauty of the disease, the transparent complexion, and 
the unnaturally bright eye, added to features cast in the clearest 
and softest mould of female loveliness. She excited general 
interest even among the gay and dissipated crowd of a watering 
place ; and if her sedan was missed in the evening promenade, 
the inquiry for her was anxious and universal. She is buried in 
a place that seems made for such as herself. 

We descended to the lower enclosure at the foot of the slight 
declivity. The first grave here is that of Keats. The inscription 
on his monument runs thus : " This grave contains all that was 
mortal of a young English poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitter- 
ness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these 
words to be engraved on his tomb : here lies one whose name 
was written in water." He died at Rome in 1821. Eveiy 
reader knows his history and the cause of his death. Shelley 
says, in the preface to his elegy, " The savage criticism on his 
poems, which appeared in the Quarterly E-eview, produced the 
most violent effect on his susceptible mind ; the agitation thus 
originated ended in a rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs ; a 
rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments, 
from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, 
were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted. " 
Keats was, no doubt, a poet of very uncommon promise. He 



414 DR. BELL. 



had all the wealth of genius within him, but he had not learned, 
before he was killed by criticism, the received, and, therefore, 
the best manner of producing it for the eye of the world. Had 
he lived longer, the strength and richness which break continually 
through the affected style of Endymion and Lamia and his other 
poems, must have formed themselves into some noble monuments 
of his powers. As it is, there is not a poet living who could sur- 
pass the material of his " Endymion " — a poem, with all its faults, 
far more full of beauties. But this is not the place for criticism, 
He is buried fitly for a poet, and sleeps beyond criticism now. 
Peace to his ashes ! 

Close to the grave of Keats is that of Dr. Bell, the author of 
u Observations on Italy." This estimable man, whose comments on 
the fine arts are, perhaps, as judicious and high-toned as any ever 
written, has left behind him, in Naples (where he practised his 
profession for some years), a host of friends, who remember and 
speak of him as few are remembered and spoken of in this 
changing and crowded portion of the world. His widow, who 
edited his works so ably and judiciously, lives still at Naples, and 
is preparing just now a new edition of his book on Italy. Hav- 
ing known her, and having heard from her own lips many par- 
ticulars of his life, I felt an additional interest in visiting his 
grave. Both his monument and Keats's are almost buried in 
the tall flowering clover of this beautiful place. 



LETTER LX- 

PRESENTATION AT THE PAPAL COURT PILGRIMS GOING TO 

VESPERS PERFORMANCE OF THE MISERERE TARPEIAN ROCK 

THE FORUM PALACE OF THE CESARS COLISEUM. 

I have been presented to the Pope this morning, in company 
with several Americans — Mr. and Mrs. Gray, -of Boston, Mr. 
Atherton and daughters, and Mr. Walsh of Philadelphia, and 
Mr. Mayer of Baltimore. With the latter gentleman, I arrived 
rather late, and found that the rest of the party had been already 
received, and that his Holiness ,was giving audience, at the 
moment, to some Russian ladies of rank. Bishop England, of 
Charleston, however, was good enough to send in once more, 
and, in the course of a few minutes, the chamberlain in waiting 
announced to us that II Padre Santo would receive us. The 
ante-room was a picturesque and rather peculiar scene. Clusters 
of priests, of different rank, were scattered about in the corners, 
dressed in a variety of splendid costumes, white, crimson, and 
ermine, one or two monks, with their picturesque beards and 
flowing dresses of gray or brown, were standing near one of the 
doors, in their habitually humble attitudes ; two gentlemen mace- 
bearers guarded the door of the entrance to the Pope's presence, 



416 AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE. 



their silver batons under their arms, and their open breasted 
cassocks covered with fine lace ; the deep bend of the window was 
occupied by the American party of ladies, in the required black 
veils ; and around the outer door stood the helmeted guard, a dozen 
stout men-at-arms, forming a forcible contrast to the mild faces 
and priestly company within. 

The mace-bearers lifted the curtain, and the Pope stood before 
us, in a small plain room. The Irish priest who accompanied us 
prostrated himself on the floor, and kissed the embroidered 
slipper, and Bishop England hastily knelt and kissed his hand, 
turning to present us as he rose. His Holiness smiled, and 
stepped forward, with a gesture of his hand, as if to prevent our 
kneeling, and, as the bishop mentioned our names, he looked at 
us and nodded smilingly, but without speaking to us. Whether 
he presumed we did not speak the language, or whether he 
thought us too young to answer for ourselves, he confined his 
inquiries about us entirely to the good bishop, leaving me, as I 
wished, at leisure to study his features and manner. It was easy 
to conceive that the father of the Catholic church stood before me, 
but I could scarcely realize that it was a sovereign of Europe, and 
the temporal monarch of millions. He was dressed in a long 
vesture of snow-white flannel, buttoned together in front, with a 
large crimson velvet cape over his shoulders, and band and tassels 
of silver cloth hanging from beneath. A small white scull-cap 
covered the crown of his head, and his hair, slightly grizzled, fell 
straight toward a low forehead, expressive of good-nature merely. 
A large emerald on his finger, and slippers wrought in gold, with 
a cross on the instep, completed his dress. His face is heavily 
moulded, but unmarked, and expressive mainly of sloth and 
kindness ; his nose is uncommonly large, rather pendant than 



HUMILITY AND PRIDE IN CONTRAST. 417 



prominent, and an incipient double chin, slightly hanging cheeks, 
and eyes, over which the lids drop, as if in sleep, at the end of 
every sentence, confirm the general impression of his presence — 
that of an indolent and good old man. His inquiries were 
principally of the Catholic church in Baltimore (mentioned by 
the bishop as the city of Mr. Mayer's residence), of its proces- 
sions, its degree of state, and whether it was recognised by the 
government. At the first pause in the conversation, his Holiness 
smiled and bowed, the Irish priest prostrated himself again, and 
kissed his foot, and, with a blessing from the father of the church, 
we retired. 

On the evening of holy Thursday, as I was on my way to St. 
Peter's to hear the miserere once more, I overtook the procession 
of pilgrims going up to vespers. The men went first in couples, 
following a cross, and escorted by gentlemen penitents covered 
conveniently with sackcloth, their eyes peeping through two holes, 
and their well-polished boots beneath, being the only indications 
by which their penance could be betrayed to the world. The 
pilgrims themselves, perhaps a hundred in all, were the dirtiest 
collection of beggars imaginable, distinguished from the lazars in 
the street, only by a long staff with a faded bunch of flowers 
attached to it, and an oil-cloth cape stitched over with scallop- 
shells. Behind came the female pilgrims, and these were led by 
the first ladies of rank in Borne. It was really curious to see the 
mixture of humility and pride. There were, perhaps, fifty ladies 
of all ages, from sixteen to fifty, walking each between two filthy 
old women who supported themselves by her arms, while near 
them, on either side of the procession, followed their splendid 
equipages, with numerous servants, in livery, on foot, as if to 
contradict to the world their temporary degradation. The lady 
18* 



418 THE MISERERE AT ST. PETER'S. 



penitents, unlike the gentlemen, walked in their ordinary dress. 
I had several acquaintances among them ; and it was inconceiv- 
able, to me, how the gay, thoughtless, fashionable creatures I had 
met in the most luxurious drawing-rooms of Rome, could be 
prevailed upon to become a part in such a ridiculous parade of 
humility. The chief penitent, who carried a large, heavy crucifix 

at the head of the procession, was the Princess , at whose 

weekly soirees and balls assemble all that is gay and pleasure- 
loving in Rome. Her two nieces, elegant girls of eighteen or 
twenty, walked at her side, carrying lighted candles, of four or 
five feet in length, in broad day-light, through the streets ! 

The procession crept slowly up to the church, and I left them 
kneeling at the tomb of St. Peter, and went to the side chapel, to 
listen to the miserere. The choir here is said to be inferior to 
that in the Sistine chapel, but the circumstances more than make 
up for the difference, which, after all, it takes a nice ear to detect. 
I could not but congratulate myself, as I sat down upon the base 
of a pillar, in the vast aisle, without the chapel where the choir 
were chanting, with the twilight gathering in the lofty arches, 
and the candles of the various processions creeping to the 
consecrated sepulchre from the distant parts of the church. It 
was so different in that crowded and suffocating chapel of the 
Vatican, where, fine as was the music, I vowed positively never 
to subject myself to such annoyance again. 

It had become almost dark, when the last candle but one was 
extinguished in the symbolical pyramid, and the first almost pain- 
ful note of the miserere wailed out into the vast church of St. 
Peter. For the next half hour, the kneeling listeners, around 
the door of the chapel, seemed spell-bound in their motionless 
attitudes. The darkness thickened, the hundred lamps at the 



ITALIAN MOONLIGHT. 419 



far-off sepulchre of the saint, looked like a galaxy of twinkling 
points of fire, almost lost in the distance ; and from the now 
perfectly obscured choir, poured, in ever-varying volume, the 
dirge-like music, in notes inconceivably plaintive and affecting. 
The power, the mingled mournfulness and sweetness, the im- 
passioned fulness, at one moment, and the lost, shrieking wild- 
ness of one solitary voice, at another, carry away the soul like a 
whirlwind. I have never been so moved by anything. It is not 
in the scope of language to convey an idea to another of the effect 
of the miserere. 

It was not till several minutes after the music had ceased, that 
the dark figures rose up from the floor about me. As we 
approached the door of the church, the full moon, about three 
hours x risen, poured broadly under the arch of the portico, inunda- 
ting the whole front of the lofty dome with a flood of light, such as 
falls only on Italy. There seemed to be no atmospliere between. 
Daylight is scarce more intense. The immense square, with its 
slender obelisk and embracing crescents of colonnade, lay spread 
out as definitely to the eye as at noon, and the two famous 
fountains shot up their clear waters to the sky, the moonlight 
streamed through the spray, and every drop as visible and bright 
as a diamond. 

I got out of the press of carriages, and took a by-street along 
the Tiber, to the Coliseum. Passing the Jews' quarter, which 
shuts at dark by heavy gates, I found myself near the Tarpeian 
rock, and entered the Forum, behind the ruins of the temple of 
Fortune. I walked toward the palace of the Cesars, stopping to 
gaze on the columns, whose shadows have fallen on the same spot, 
where I now saw them, for sixteen or seventeen centuries. It 
checks the blood at one's heart, to stand on the spot and remem- 



420 DANCING AT THE COLISEUM. 



ber it. There was not the sound of a footstep through the whole 
wilderness of the Forum. I traversed it to the arch of Titus in 
a silence, which, with the majestic ruins around, seemed almost 
supernatural — the mind was left so absolutely to the powerful 
associations of the place. 

Ten minutes more brought me to the Coliseum. Its gigantic 
walls, arches on arches, almost to the very clouds, lay half in 
shadow, half in light, the ivy hung trembling in the night air, 
from between the cracks of the ruin, and it looked like some 
mighty wreck in a desert. I entered, and a hundred voices 
announced to me the presence of half the fashion of Rome. I 
had forgotten that it was the mode " to go to the Coliseum by 
moonlight." Here they were dancing and laughing about the 
arena where thousands of Christians had been torn by wild 
beasts, for the amusement of the emperors of Rome; where 
gladiators had fought and died ; where the sands beneath their 
feet were more eloquent of blood than any other spot on the face 
of the earth — and one sweet voice proposed a dance, and another 
wished she could have music and supper, and the solemn old 
arches re-echoed with shouts and laughter. The travestie of the 
thing was amusing. I miugled in the crowd, and found acquaint- 
ances of every nation, and an hour I had devoted to romantic 
solitude and thought passed away, perhaps, quite as agreeably, in 
the nonsense of the most thoughtless triflers in society. 



LETTER LXI. 

VIGILS OVER THE HOST CEREMONIES OF EASTER SUNDAY THE 

PROCESSION HIGH MASS THE POPE BLESSING THE PEOPLE 

CURIOUS ILLUMINATION RETURN TO FLORENCE RURAL 

FESTA HOSPITALITY OF THE FLORENTINES EXPECTED MAR- 
RIAGE OF THE GRAND DUKE. 

Rome, 1833.— This is Friday of the holy week. The host, 
which was deposited yesterday amid its thousand lamps in the 
Paoline chapel, was taken from its place this morning, in solemn 
procession, and carried back to the Sistine, after lying in the 
consecrated placi twenty-four hours. Vigils were kept over it 
all night. The Paoline chapel has no windows, and the lights 
are so disposed as to multiply its receding arches till the eye is 
lost in them. The altar on which the host lay was piled up to 
the roof in a pyramid of light, and with the prostrate figures 
constantly covering the floor, and the motionless soldier in 
antique armor at the entrance, it was like some scene of wild 
romance. - 

The ceremonies of Easter Sunday were performed where all 
others should have been— in the body of St. Peter's. Two lines 



422 EASTER SUNDAY. 



of soldiers, forming an aisle up the centre, stretched from the 
square without the portico to the sacred sepulchre. Two 
temporary platforms for the various diplomatic corps and other 
privileged persons occupied the sides, and the remainder, of the 
church was filled by thousands of strangers, Roman peasantry, and 
contadini (in picturesque red boddices, and with golden bodkins 
through their hair), from all the neighboring towns. 

A loud blast of trumpets, followed by military music, announced 
the coming of the procession. The two long lines of soldiers 
presented arms, and the esquires of the Pope entered first, in red 
robes, followed by the long train of proctors, chamberlains, mitre- 
bearers, and incense-bearers, the men-at-arms, escorting the 
procession on either side. Just before the cardinals, came a 
cross-bearer, supported on either side by men in showy surplices 
carrying lights, and then came the long and brilliant line of 
white-headed cardinals, in scarlet and ermine. The military 
dignitaries of the monarch preceded the Pope, a splendid mass of 
uniforms, and his Holiness then appeared, supported, in his great 
gold and velvet chair, upon the shoulders of twelve men, clothed 
in red damask, with a canopy over his head, sustained by eight 
gentlemen, in short, violet-colored silk mantles. Six of the 
Swiss guard (representing the six Catholic canons) walked near 
the Pope, with drawn swords on their shoulders, and after his 
chair followed a troop of civil officers, whose appointments I did 
not think it worth while to enquire. The procession stopped 
when the Pope was opposite the " chapel of the holy sacrament," 
and his Holiness descended. The tiara was lifted from his head 
by a cardinal, and he knelt upon a cushion of velvet and gold to 
adore the " sacred host," which was exposed upon the altar. 
After a few minutes he returned to his chair, his tiara was again 



THE POPE'S BLESSING. 423 



set on his head, and the music rang out anew, while the procession 
swept on to the sepulchre. 

The spectacle was all splendor. The clear space through the 
vast area of the church, lined with glittering soldiery, the 
dazzling gold and crimson of the coming procession, the high 
papal chair, with the immense fan-banners of peacock's feathers, 
held aloft, the almost immeasurable dome and mighty pillars, 
above and around, and the multitudes of silent people, produced 
a scene which, connected with the idea of religious worship, and 
added to by the swell of a hundred instruments of music, quite 
dazzled and overpowered me. 

The high mass (performed but three times a year) proceeded. 
At the latter part of it, the Pope mounted to the altar, and, after 
various ceremonies, elevated the sacred host. At the instant 
that the small white wafer was seen between the golden candle- 
sticks, the two immense lines of soldiers dropped upon their 
knees, and all the people prostrated themselves at the same 
instant. 

This fine scene over, we hurried to the square in front of the 
church, to secure places for a still finer one — that of the Pope 
blessing the people. Several thousand troops, cavalry and foot- 
men, were drawn up between the steps and the obelisk, in the 
centre of the piazza, and the immense area embraced by the two 
circling colonnades was crowded by, perhaps, a hundred thousand 
people, with eyes directed to one single point. The variety of 
bright costumes, the gay liveries of the ambassadors' and cardinals' 
carriages, the vast body of soldiery, and the magnificent frame of 
columns and fountains in which this gorgeous picture was con- 
tained, formed the grandest scene conceivable. 

In a few minutes the Pope appeared in the balcony, over the 



424 ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S. 



great door of St. Peter's. Every hat in the vast multitude was 
lifted and every knee bowed in an instant. Half a nation 
prostrate together, and one gray old man lifting up his hands to 
heaven and blessing them ! 

The cannon of the castle of St. Angelo thundered, the 
innumerable bells of Rome pealed forth simultaneously, the 
troops fell into line and motion, and the children of the two 
hundred and fifty-seventh successor of St. Peter departed 
blessed. 

In the evening all the world assembled to see the illumination, 
which it is useless to attempt to describe. 

The night was cloudy and black, and every line in the 
architecture of the largest building in the world was defined in 
light, even to the cross, which, as I have said before, is at the 
height of a mountain from the base. For about an hour it was a 
delicate but vast structure of shining lines, like a drawing of a 
glorious temple on the clouds. At eight, as the clock struck, 
flakes of fire burst from every point, and the whole building 
seemed started into flame. It was done by a simultaneous 
kindling of torches in a thousand points, a man stationed at each. 
The glare seemed to exceed that of noonday. No description can 
give an idea of it. 

I am not sure that I have not been a little tedious in describ- 
ing the ceremonies of the holy week. Forsyth says in his bilious 
book, that he " never could read, and certainly never could write, 
a description of them." They have struck me, however, as 
particularly unlike anything ever seen in our own country, and I 
have endeavored to draw them slightly and with as little particu- 
larity as possible. I trust that some of the readers of the Mirror 
may find them entertaining and novel. 



FLORENTINE SOCIABILITY. 425 

Florence, 1833. — I found myself at six this morning, where 
I had found myself at the same hour a year before— in the midst 
of the rural festa in the Cascine of Florence. The Duke, to-day, 
breakfasts at his farm. The people of Florence, high and low, 
come out, and spread their repasts upon the fine sward of the 
openings in the wood, the roads are watered, and the royal 
equipages dash backward and forward, while the ladies hang their 
shawls in the trees, and children and lovers stroll away into the 
shade, and all looks like a scene from Boccaccio. 

I thought it a picturesque and beautiful sight last year, and so 
described it. But I was a stranger then, newly arrived in 
Florence, and felt desolate amid the happiness of so many. A 
few months among so frank and warm-hearted a people as the 
Tuscans, however, makes one at home. The tradesman and his 
wife, familiar with your face, and happy to be seen in their 
holyday dresses, give you the " bnon giorno^ as you pass, and a 
cup of red wine or a seat at the cloth on the grass is at your 
service in almost any group in the prato. I am sure I should 
not find so many acquaintances in the town in which I have 
passed my life. 

A little beyond the crowd, lies a broad open glade of the 
greenest grass, in the very centre of the woods of the farm. A 
broad fringe of shade is flung by the trees along the eastern side, 
and at their roots cluster the different parties of the nobles and 
the ambassadors. Their gayly-dressed chasseurs are in waiting, 
the silver plate quivers and glances, as the chance rays of the sun 
break through the leaves over head, and at a little distance, in 
the road, stand their showy equipages in a long line from the 
great oak to the farmhouse. 

In the evening, there was an illumination of the green alleys 



426 A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE. 



and the little square in front of the house, and a band of music 
for the people. Within, the halls were thrown open for a ball. 
It was given by the Grand Duke to the Duchess of Litchtenberg, 
the widow of Eugene Beauharnois. The company assembled at 
eight, and the presentations (two lovely countrywomen of our 
own among them), were over at nine. The dancing then 
commenced, and we drove home, through the fading lights still 
burning in the trees, an hour or two past midnight. 

The Grand Duke is about to be married to one of the prin- 
cesses of Naples, and great preparations are making for the event. 
He looks little like a bridegroom, with his sad face, and unshorn 
beard and hair. It is, probably, not a marriage of inclination, 
for the fat princess expecting him, is every way inferior to the 
incomparable woman he has lost, and he passed half the last 
week in a lonely visit to the chamber in which she died, in his 
palace at Pisa. 



LETTER LXII. 

BOLOGNA MALIBRAN PARMA NIGHTINGALES OF LOMBARD Y 

PLACENZA AUSTRIAN SOLDIERS THE SIMPLON MILAN RE- 
SEMBLANCE TO PARIS THE CATHEDRAL GUERCINO's HAGAR 

MILANESE COFFEE. 

Milan. — My fifth journey over the Apennines — dull of 
course. On the second evening we were at Bologna. The long 
colonnades pleased me less than before, with their crowds of 
foreign officers and ill-dressed inhabitants, and a placard for the 
opera, announcing Malibran's last night, relieved us of the 
prospect of a long evening of weariness. The divine music of 
La Norma and a crowded and brilliant audience, enthusiastic in 
their applause, seemed to inspire this still incomparable creature 
even beyond her wont. She sang with a fulness, an abandonment, 
a passionate energy and sweetness that seemed to come from a 
soul rapt and possessed beyond control, with the melody it had 
undertaken. They were never done calling her on the stage after 
the curtain had fallen. After six re-appearances, she came out 
once more to the footlights, and murmuring something inaudible 
from her lips that showed strong agitation, she pressed her hands 
together, bowed till her long hair, falling over her shoulders, 



428 THE CORREGGIO. 



nearly touched her feet, and retired in tears. She is the siren 
of Europe for me ! 

I was happy to have no more to do with the Duke of Modena, 
than to eat a dinner in his capital. We did " not forget the 
picture," but my inquiries for it were as fruitless as before. I 
wonder whether the author of the Pleasures of Memory has the 
pleasure of remembering having seen the picture himself ! 
" Tassoni's bucket which is not the true one," is still shown in 
the tower, and the keeper will kiss the cross upon his fingers, that 
Samuel Rogers has written a false line. 

At Parma we ate parmesan and saw the, Correggio. The angel 
who holds the book up to the infant Saviour, the female laying her 
cheek to his feet, the countenance of the holy child himself, are 
creations that seem apart from all else in the schools of painting. 
They are like a group, not from life, but from heaven. They are 
superhuman, and, unlike other pictures of beauty which stir the 
heart as if they resembled something one had loved or might 
have loved, these mount into the fancy like things transcending 
sympathy, and only within reach of an intellectual and elevated 
wonder. This is the picture that Sir Thomas Lawrence returned 
six times in one day to see. It is the only thing I saw to admire 
in the Duchy of Maria Louisa. An Austrian regiment marched 
into the town as we left it, and an Italian at the gate told us that 
the Duchess had disbanded her last troops of the country, and 
supplied their place with these yellow and black Croats and 
Illyrians. Italy is Austria now to the foot of the Apennines — if 
not to the top of Radicofani. 

Lombardy is full of nightingales. They sing by day, however 
(as not specified in poetry). They are up quite as early as the 
lark, and the green hedges are alive with their gurgling and 



AUSTRIANS IN ITALY. 429 



changeful music till twilight. Nothing can exceed the fertility 
of these endless plains. They are four or five hundred miles of 
uninterrupted garden. The same eternal level road, the same 
rows of elms and poplars on either side, the same long, slimy 
canals, the same square, vine-laced, perfectly green pastures and 
cornfields, the same shaped houses, the same-voiced beggars with 
the same sing-song whine, and the same villanous Austrians 
poring over your passports and asking to be paid for it, from the 
Alps to the Apennines. It is wearisome, spite of green leaves 
and nightingales. A bare rock or a good brigand-looking 
mountain would so refresh the eye ! 

At Placenza, one of those admirable German bands was 
playing in the public square, while a small corps of picked men 
were manoeuvred. Even an Italian, I should think, though he 
knew and felt it was the music of his oppressors, might have been 
pleased to listen. And pleased they seemed to be — for there 
were hundreds of dark-haired and well-made men, with faces and 
forms for heroes, standing and keeping time with the well-played 
instruments, as peacefully as if there were no such thing as 
liberty, and no meaning in the foreign uniforms crowding them 
from their own pavement. And there were the women of 
Placenza, nodding from the balconies to the white mustaches and 
padded coats strutting below, and you would never dream Italy 
thought herself wronged, watching the exchange of courtesies 
between her dark-eyed daughters and these fair-haired coxcombs. 

We crossed the Po, and entered Austria's nominal dominions. 
They rummaged our baggage as if they smelt republicanism 
somewhere, and after showing a strong disposition to retain a 
volume of very bad poetry as suspicious, and detaining us two 
long hours, they had the ~nodesty to ask to be paid for letting us 



430 THE CATHEDRAL AT MILAN. 



off lightly. When we declined it, the chef threatened us a 
precious searching " the next time." How willingly I would 
submit to the annoyance to have that next time assured to me ! 
Every step I take toward the bounds of Italy, pulls so upon my 
heart ! 

As most travellers come into Italy over the Simplon, Milan 
makes generally the first enthusiastic chapter in their books. I 
have reversed the order myself, and have a better right to praise 
it from comparison. For exterior, there is certainly no city in 
Italy comparable to it. The streets are broad and noble, the 
buildings magnificent, the pavement quite the best in Europe, 
and the Milanese (all of whom I presume I have seen, for it is 
Sunday, and the streets swarm with them), are better dressed, 
and look " better to do in the world" than the Tuscans, who are 
gayer and more Italian, and the Romans, who are graver and 
vastly handsomer. Milan is quite like Paris. The showy and 
mirror-lined cafes, the elegant shops, the variety of strange 
people and costumes, and a new gallery lately opened in imitation 
of the glass-roofed passages of the French capital, make one 
almost feel that the next turn will bring him upon the 
Boulevards. 

The famous cathedral, nearly completed by Napoleon, is a sort 
of Aladdin creation, quite too delicate and beautiful for the open 
air. The filmly traceries of gothic fretwork, the needle-like 
minarets, the hundreds of beautiful statues with which it is 
studded, the intricate, graceful, and bewildering architecture of 
every window and turret, and the frost-like frailness and delicacy 
of the whole mass, make an effect altogether upon the eye that 
must stand high on the list of new sensations. It is a vast 
structure withal, but a middling easterly breeze, one would think 



GUERCINO'S HAGAR. 431 



in looking at it, would lift it from its base and bear it over the 
Atlantic like the meshes of a cobweb. Neither interior nor 
exterior impresses you with the feeling of awe common to other 
large churches. The sun struggles through the immense windows 
of painted glass, staining every pillar and carved cornice with the 
richest hues, and wherever the eye wanders it grows giddy with 
the wilderness of architecture. The people on their knees are- 
like paintings in the strong artificial light, the checkered pave- 
ment seems trembling with a quivering radiance, the altar is far 
and indistinct, and the lamps burning over the tomb of Saint 
Carlo, shine out from the centre like gems glistening in the 
midst of some enchanted hall. This reads very like rhapsody, 
but it is the way the place impressed me. It is like a great 
dream. Its excessive beauty scarce seems constant while the eye 
rests upon it. 

The Brera is a noble palace, occupied by the public galleries 
of statuary and painting. I felt on leaving Florence that I could 
give pictures a very long holyday. To live on them, as one does 
in Italy, is like dining from morn till night. The famous 
Guercino, is at Milan, however, the " Hagar," which Byron talks 
of so enthusiastically, and I once more surrendered myself to a 
cicerone. The picture catches your eye on your first entrance. 
There is that harmony and effect in the color that mark a 
masterpiece, even in a passing glance. Abraham stands in the 
centre of the group, a fine, prophet-like, " green old man," with 
a mild decision in his eye, from which there is evidently no 
appeal. Sarah has turned her back, and you can just read in the 
half-profile glance of her face, that there is a little pity mingled 
in her hard-hearted approval of her rival's banishment. But 
Hagar — who can describe the world of meaning in her face ? 



432 MILANESE COFFEE. 



The closed lips have in them a calm incredulousness, contradicted 
with wonderful nature in the flushed and troubled forehead, and 
the eyes red with long weeping. The gourd of water is hung 
over her shoulder, her hand is turning her sorrowful boy from the 
door, and she has looked back once more, with a large tear 
coursing down her cheek, to read in the face of her master if she 
is indeed driven forth for ever. It is the instant before pride and 
despair close over her heart. You see in the picture that the 
next moment is the crisis of her life. Her gaze is straining upon 
the old man's lips, and you wait breathlessly to see her draw up 
her bending form, and depart in proud sorrow for the wilderness. 
It is a piece of powerful and passionate poetry. It affects you 
like nothing but a reality. The eyes get warm, and the heart 
beats quick, and as you walk away you feel as if a load of 
oppressive sympathy was lifting from your heart. 

I have seen little else in Milan, except Austrian soldiers, of 
whom there are fifteen thousand in this single capital ! The 
government has issued an order to officers not on duty, to appear 
in citizen's dress, it is supposed, to diminish the appearance of so 
much military preparation. For the rest, they make a kind of 
coffee here, by boiling it with cream, which is better than 
anything of the kind either in Paris or Constantinople ; and the 
Milanese are, for slaves, the most civil people I have seen, after 
the Florentines. There is little English society here ; I know 
not why, except that the Italians are rich enough to be exclusive 
and make their houses difficult of access to strangers. 



POLITENESS VERSUS COMFORT. 



457 



in its wi-attention, and after a bad supper, worse beds, and every 
kind of annoyance, down comes my lady-hostess in the morning 
to receive her coin, and if you can fly into a passion with such a 
cap, and such a smile, and such a " bon jour," you are of less 
penetrable stuff than man is commonly made of. 

I loved Italy, but detested the Italians. I detest France, but 
I can not help liking the French. " Politeness is among the 
virtues," says the philosopher. Rather, it takes the place of 
them all. What can you believe ill of a people whose slightest 
look toward you is made up of grace and kindness. 

We are dawdling along thirty miles a day through Burgundy, 
sick to death of the bare vine-stakes, and longing to see a fes- 
tooned vineyard of Lombardy. France is such an ugly country ! 
The diligences lumber by, noisy and ludicrous ; the cow-tenders 
wear cocked hats ; the beggars are in the true French extreme, 
theatrical in all their misery ; the climate is rainy and cold, and 
as unlike that of Italy as if a thousand leagues separated them, 
and the roads are long, straight, dirty, and uneven. There is 
neither pleasure nor comfort, neither scenery nor antiquities, nor 
accommodations for the weary — nothing but politeness . And it 
is odd how it reconciles you to it all. 

20 



LETTER LXVII. 

PARIS AND LONDON REASONS FOR LIKING PARIS JOYOUSNESS 

OF ITS CITIZENS LAFAYETTE'S FUNERAL ROYAL RESPECT AND 

GRATITUDE ENGLAND DOVER ENGLISH NEATNESS AND COM- 
FORT, AS DISPLAYED IN THE HOTELS, WAITERS, FIRES, BELL- 
ROPES, LANDSCAPES, WINDOW-CURTAINS, TEA-KETTLES, STAGE- 
COACHES, HORSES, AND EVERYTHING ELSE SPECIMEN OF 

ENGLISH RESERVE THE GENTLEMAN DRIVER OF FASHION A 

CASE FOR MRS. TROLLOPE. 

It is pleasant to get back to Paris. One meets everybody 
there one ever saw ; and operas and coffee, Taglioni and Leon- 
tine Fay, the belles and the Boulevards, the shops, spectacles, 
life, lions, and lures to every species of pleasure, rather give you 
the impression that, outside the barriers of Paris, time is wasted 
in travel. 

What pleasant idlers they look ! The very shopkeepers seem 
standing behind their counters for amusement. The soubrette 
who sells you a cigar, or ties a crape on your arm (it was for 
poor old Lafayette), is coiffed as for a ball ; the frotteur who 
takes the dust from your boots, sings his lovesong as he brushes 
away, the old man has his bouquet in his bosom, and the beggar 



LAFAYETTE'S FUNERAL. 459 

looks up at the new statue of Napoleon in the Place Vendome — 
everybody has some touch of fancy, some trace of a heart on the 
look-out, at least, for pleasure. 

I was at Lafayette's funeral. Jhey buried the old patriot like 
a criminal. Fixed bayonets before and behind his hearse, his 
own National Guard disarmed, and troops enough to beleaguer a 
city, were the honors paid by the " citizen king" to the man who 
had made him ! The indignation, the scorn, the bitterness, ex- 
pressed on every side among the people, and the ill-smothered 
cries of disgust as the two empty royal carriages went by, in the 
funeral train, seemed to me strong enough to indicate a settled 
and universal hostility to the government. 

I met Dr. Bowring on the Boulevard after the funeral was 
over. I had not seen him for two years, but he could talk of 
nothing but the great event of the day — " You have come in 
time," he said, " to see how they carried the old general to his 
grave ! What would they say to this in America ? Well — let 
them go on ! We shall see what will come of it ? They have 
buried Liberty and Lafayette together — our last hope in Europe 
is quite dead with him !" 



After three delightful days in Paris we took the northern dili- 
gence ; and, on the second evening, having passed hastily 
through Montreuil, Abbeville, Boulogne, and voted the road the 
dullest couple of hundred miles we had seen in our travels, we 
were set down in Calais. A stroll through some very indifferent 
streets, a farewell visit to the last French cafe, we were likely to 
see for a long time, and some unsatisfactory inquiries about Beau 



460 CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 



Brummel, who is said to live here still, filled up till bedtime our 
last day on the continent. 

The celebrated Countess of Jersey was on board the steamer, 
and some forty or fifty plebeian stomachs shared with her 
fashionable ladyship and ourselves the horrors of a passage 
across the channel. It is rather the most disagreeable sea I 
ever traversed, though I have seen " the Euxine," " the roughest 
sea the traveller e'er s," etc., according to Don Juan. 

I was lying on my back in a berth when the steamer reached 
her moorings at Dover, and had neither eyes nor disposition to 
indulge in the proper sentiment on approaching the " white cliffs" 
of my fatherland. I crawled on deck, and was met by a wind as 
cold as December, and a crowd of rosy English faces on the pier, 
wrapped in cloaks and shawls, and indulging curiosity evidently 
at the expense of a shiver. It was the first of June ! 

My companion led the way to a hotel, and we were introduced 
by English waiters (I had not seen such a thing in three years, 
and it was quite like being waited on by gentlemen), to two blaz- 
ing coal fires in the " coffee room" of the " Ship." Oh what a 
comfortable place it appeared ! A rich Turkey carpet snugly 
fitted, nice-rubbed mahogany tables, the morning papers from 
London, bellropes that would ring 4he bell, doors that would 
shut, a landlady that spoke English, and was kind and civil ; and, 
though there were eight or ten people in the room, no noise 
above the rustle of a newspaper, and positively, rich red damask 
curtains, neither second-hand nor shabby, to the windows ! A 
greater contrast than this to the things that answer to them on 
the continent, could scarcely be imagined. 

Malgre all my observations on the English, whom I have 
found elsewhere the most open-hearted and social people in the 



AN ENGLISH INN. 46 1 



world, they are said by themselves and others to be just the con- 
trary ; and, presuming they were different in England, I had 
made up my mind to seal my lips in all public places, and be 
conscious of nobody's existence but my own. There were 
several elderly persons dining at the different tables ; and one 
party, of a father and son, waited on by their own servants in 
livery. Candles were brought in, the different cloths were 
removed ; and, as my companion had gone to bed, I took up a 
newspaper to keep me company over my wine. In the course 
of an hour, some remark had been addressed to me, provocative 
of conversation, by almost every individual in the room ! The 
subjects of discussion soon became general, and I have seldom 
passed a more social and agreeable evening. And so much for 
the first specimen of English reserve ! 

The fires were burning brilliantly, and the coffee-room was in 
the nicest order when we descended to our breakfast at six the 
next morning. The tea-kettle sung on the hearth, the toast was 
hot, and done to a turn, and the waiter was neither sleepy nor 
uncivil — all, again, very unlike a morning at a hotel in la belle 
France. 

The coach rattled up to the door punctually at the hour ; and, 
while they were putting on my way-worn baggage, I stood looking 
in admiration at the carriage and horses. They were four beau- 
tiful bays, in small, neat harness of glazed leather, brass-mounted, 
their coats shining like a racer's, their small, blood-looking heads 
curbed up to stand exactly together, and their hoofs blacked and 
brushed with the polish of a gentleman's boots. The coach was 
gaudily painted, the only thing out of taste about it ; but it was 
admirably built, the wheel-horses were quite under the coach- 
man's box, and the whole affair, though it would carry twelve or 



462 MAIL COACHES AND HORSES. 



fourteen people, covered less ground than a French one-horse 
cabriolet. It was altogether quite a study. 

We mounted to the top of the coach ; " all right," said the 
ostler, and away shot the four fine creatures, turning their small 
ears, and stepping together with the ease of a cat, at ten miles 
in the hour. The driver was dressed like a Broadway idler, and 
sat in his place, and held his " ribands" and his tandemwhip 
with a confident air of superiority, as if he were quite convinced 
that he and his team were beyond criticism — and so they were ! 
1 could not but smile at contrasting his silence and the speed and 
ease with which we went along, with the clumsy, cumbrous 
diligence or vetturino, and the crying, whipping, cursing and ill- 
appointed postillions of France and Italy. It seems odd, in a 
two hours' passage, to pass over such strong lines of national 
difference — so near, and not even a shading of one into the other. 

England is described always very justly, and always in the 
same words : "it is all one garden." There is not a cottage 
between Dover and London (seventy miles), where a poet might 
not be happy to live. I saw a hundred little spots I coveted 
with quite a heart-ache. There was no poverty on the road. 
Everybody seemed employed, and everybody well-made and 
healthy. The relief from the deformity and disease of the way- 
side beggars of the continent was very striking. 

We were at Canterbury before I had time to get accustomed 
to my seat. The horses had been changed twice ; the coach, it 
seemed to me, hardly stopping while it was done ; way -passen- 
gers were taken up and put down, with their baggage, without a 
word, and in half a minute ; money was tossed to the keeper of 
the turnpike gate as we dashed through ; the wheels went over 



A GENTLEMAN DRIVER. 403 



the smooth road without noise, and with scarce a sense of motion 
— it was the perfection of travel. 

The new driver from Canterbury rather astonished me. Ho 
drove into London every day, and was more of a "swell." He 
owned the first team himself, four blood horses of great beauty, 
and it was a sight to see him drive them ! His language was 
free from all slang, and very gentlemanlike and well chosen, and 
he discussed everything. He found out that I was an American, 
and said we did not think enough of the memory of Washington. 
Leaving his bones in the miserable brick tomb, of which he had 
descriptions, was not, in his opinion, worthy of a country like 
mine. He went on to criticise Julia Grisi (the new singer just 
then setting London on fire), hummed airs from " II Pirati," to 
show her manner ; sang an English song like Braham ; orave a 
decayed Count, who sat on the box, some very sensible advice 
about the management of a wild son ; drew a comparison 
between French and Italian women (he had travelled) ; told us 
who the old Count was in very tolerable French, and preferred 
Edmund Kean and Fanny Kemble to all actors in the world. 
His taste and his philosophy, like his driving, were quite unex- 
ceptionable. He was, withal, very handsome, and had the easy 
and respectful manners of a well-bred person. It seemed very 
odd to give him a shilling at the end of the journey. 

At Chatham we took up a very elegantly dressed young man, 
#ho had come d^wn on a fishing excursion. He was in the 
army, and an Irishman. We had not been half an hour on the 
seat together, before he had discovered, by so many plain ques- 
tions, that I was an American, a stranger in England, and an 
acquaintance of a whole regiment of his friends in Malta and 
Corfu. If this had been a Yankee, thought I, what a chapter it 



464 A SUBJECT FOR MADAME TROLLOPE. 



would have made for Basil Hall or Madame Troll ope ! "With all 
his inquisitiveness I liked my companion, and half accepted his 
offer to drive me down to Epsom the next day to the races. I 
know no American who would have beaten that on a stage-coach 
acquaintance. 



LETTER LXVIII. 

FIRST VIEW OF LONDON THE KING'S BIRTHDAY PROCESSION OF 

MAIL COACHES REGENT STREET LADY BLESSINGTON THE 

ORIGINAL PELHAM BULWER, THE NOVELIST JOHN GALT 

D'lSRAELI, THE AUTHOR OF VIVIAN GREY RECOLLECTIONS OF 

BYRON INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN OPINIONS ON ENGLISH LITE- 
RATURE. 

London. — From the top of Shooter's Hill we got our first 
view of London — an indistinct, architectural mass, extending all 
round to the horizon, and half enveloped in a dim and lurid 
smoke. " That is St. Paul's ! — there is Westminster Abbey ! — 
there is the tower of London !" What directions were these to 
follow for the first time with the eye ! 

From Blackheath (seven or eight miles from the centre of 
London), the beautnul hedges disappeared, and it was one con- 
tinued mass of buildings. The houses were amazingly small, a 
kind of thing that would do for an object in an imitation perspec- 
tive park, but the soul of neatness pervaded them. Trelises 
were nailed between the little windows, roses quite overshadowed 
the low doors, a painted fence enclosed the hand's breadth of 
20* 



466 FIRST DINNER IN LONDON. 



grass-plot, and very, oh, very sweet faces bent over lapfuls of 
work beneath the snowy and looped-up curtains. It was all 
home-like and amiable. There was an affectionateness in the 
mere outside of every one of them. 

After crossing Waterloo Bridge, it was busy work for the eyes. 
The brilliant shops, the dense crowds of people, the absorbed air 
of every passenger, the lovely women, the cries, the flying 
vehicles of every description, passing with the most dangerous 
speed — accustomed as I am to large cities, it quite made me 
dizzy. We got into a " jarvey" at the coach-office, and in half 
an hour I was in comfortable quarters, with windows looking 
down St. James street % and the most agreeable leaf of my life 
to turn over. " Great emotions interfere little with the mechan- 
ical operations of life," however, and I dressed and dined, 
though it was my first hour in London. 

I was sitting in the little parlor alone over a fried sole and a 
mutton cutlet, when the waiter came in, and pleading the crowded 
state of the hotel, asked my permission to spread the other side 
of the table for a clergyman. I have a kindly preference for the 
cloth, and made not the slightest objection. Enter a fat man, 
with top-boots and a hunting-whip, rosy as Bacchus, and exces- 
sively out of breath with mounting one flight of stairs. Beef- 
steak and potatoes, a pot of porter, and a bottle of sherry 
followed close on his heels. With a single apology for the intru- 
sion, the reverend gentleman fell to, and we ate and drank for a 
while in true English silence. 

" From Oxford, sir, I presume," he said at last, pushing back 
his plate, with an air of satisfaction. 

" No, I had never the pleasure of seeing Oxford." 

" R — e — ally ! may I take a glass of wine with you, sir ?" 



THE KING'S BIRTH-DAY. 467 



We got on swimmingly. He would not believe I had never 
been in England till the day before, but his cordiality was no 
colder for that. We exchanged port and sherry, and a most 
amicable understanding found its way down with the wine. Our 
table was near the window, and a great crowd began to collect at 
the corner of St. James' street. It was the king's birth-day, 
and the people were thronging to see the nobility come in state 
from the royal Levee. The show was less splendid than the same 
thing in Rome or Vienna, but it excited far more of my admira- 
tion. G-audiness and tinsel were exchanged for plain richness 
and perfect fitness in the carriages and harness, while the horses 
were incomparably finer. My friend pointed out to me the 
different liveries as they turned the corner into Piccadilly, the duke 
of Wellington's among others. I looked hard to see His Grace ; 
but the two pale and beautiful faces on the back seat, carried 
nothing like the military nose on the handles of the umbrellas. 

The annual procession of mail-coaches followed, and it was 
hardly less brilliant. The drivers and guard in their bright red 
and gold uniforms, the admirable horses driven so beautifully, the 
neat harness, the exactness with which the room of each horse 
was calculated, and the small space in which he worked, and the 
compactness and contrivance of the coaches, formed altogether 
one of the most interesting spectacles I have ever seen. My 
friend, the clergyman, with whom I had walked out to see them 
pass, criticised the different teams con amore, but in language 
which I did not always understand. I asked him once for an 
explanation ; but he looked . rather grave, and said something 
about "gammon," evidently quite sure that my ignorance of 
London was a mere quiz. 

We walked down Piccadilly, and turned into, beyond all 



468 A HANDSOME STREET. 



comparison, the most handsome street I ever saw. The Toledo 
of Naples, the Corso of Rome, the Kohl-market of Vienna, the 
Rue de la Paix and Boulevards of Paris, have each impressed 
me strongly with their magnificence, but they are really nothing 
to Regent-street. I had merely time to get a glance at it before 
dark; but for breadth and convenience, for the elegance and 
variety of the buildings, though all of the same scale and 
material, and for the brilliancy and expensiveness of the shops, 
it seemed to me quite absurd to compare it with anything 
between New York and Constantinople — Broadway and the 
Hippodrome included. 

It is the custom for the king's tradesmen to illuminate their 
shops on His Majesty's birth-night, and the principal streets on 
our return were in a blaze of light. The crowd was immense. 
None but the lower order seemed abroad, and I cannot describe 
to you the effect on my feelings on hearing my language spoken 
by every man, woman, and child, about me. It seemed a 
completely foreign country in every other respect, different from 
what I had imagined, different from my own and all that I had 
seen ; and, coming to it last, it seemed to me the farthest off 
and strangest country of all— and yet the little sweep who went 
laughing through the crowd, spoke a language that I had heard 
attempted in vain by thousands of educated people, and that I 
had grown to consider next to unattainable by others, and almost 
useless to myself. Still, it did not make me feel at home. 
Everything else about me was too new. It was like some mys- 
terious change in my own ears — a sudden power of comprehen- 
sion, such as a man might feel who was cured suddenly of 
deafness. You can scarcely enter into my feelings till you have 
had the changes of French, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, 



INTRODUCTION TO LADY BLESSIXGTON. 469 



Illyrian, and the mixtures and dialects of each, rung upon your 
hearing almost exclusively, as I have for years. I wandered 
about as if I were exercising some supernatural faculty in a 
dream. 

A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to Lady Bless- 
ington, and with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, T 
called on the second day after my arrival in London. It was 
" deep i' the afternoon," but I had not yet learned the full 
meaning of a -town hours." " Her ladyship had not come down 
to breakfast." I gave the letter and my address to the powdered 
footman, and had scarce reached home when a note arrived 
inviting me to call the same evening at ten. 

In a long library lined alternately with splendidly bound books 
and mirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the 
room, opening upon Hyde Park, I found Lady Blessington alone. 
The picture to my eye as the door opened was a very lovely one. 
A woman of remarkarkable beauty half buried in a fauteuil of 
yellow satin, reading by a magnificent lamp, suspended from the 
centre of the arched ceiling ; sofas, couches, ottomans, and 
busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through the 
room ; enamel tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles 
in every corner, and a delicate white hand relieved on the back 
of a book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of its 
diamond rings. As the servant mentioned my name, she rose 
and gave me her hand very cordially, and a gentleman entering 
immediately after, she presented me to her son-in-law, Count 
D'Orsay, the well-known Pelham of London, and certainly the 
most splendid specimen of a man, and a well-dressed one that I 
had ever seen. Tea was brought in immediately, and conversa- 
tion went swimmingly on. 



470 A CHAT ABOUT BULWER. 



Her ladyship's inquiries were principally about America, of 
which, from long absence, I knew very little. She was extremely 
curious to know the degrees of reputation the present popular 
authors of England enjoy among us, particularly Bulwer, Gait, 
and D'Israeli (the author of Yivian Grey.) " If you will come 
to-morrow night," she said, " you will see Bulwer. I am 
delighted that he is popular in America. He is envied and 
abused by all the literary men of London, for nothing, I believe, 
except that he gets five hundred pounds for his books and they 
fifty, and knowing this, he chooses to assume a pride (some 
people call it puppyism), which is only the armor of a sensitive 
mind, afraid of a wound. He is to his friends, the most frank 
and gay creature in the world, and open to boyishness with those 
who he thinks understand and value him. He has a brother 
Henry, who is as clever as himself in a different vein, and is just 
now publishing a book on the present state of France. Bulwer's 
wife, you know, is one of the most beautiful women in London, 
and his house is the resort of both fashion and talent. He is 
just now hard at work on a new book, the subject of which is 
the last days of Pompeii. The hero is a Roman dandy, who 
wastes himself in luxury, till this great catastrophe rouses him 
and develops a character of the noblest capabilities. Is Gait 
much liked ?" 

I answered to the best of my knowledge that he was not. His 
life of Byron was a stab at the dead body of the noble poet, which, 
for one, I never could forgive, and his books were clever, but 
vulgar. He was evidently not a gentleman in his mind. This 
was the opinion I had formed in America, and I had never heard 
another. 

" I am sorry for it," said Lady B., "for he is the dearest and 



THE D'ISRAELI'S. 47 1 



best old man in the world. I know him well. He is just on the 
verge of the grave, but comes to see me now and then, and if you 
had known how shockingly Byron treated him, you would only 
wonder at his sparing his memory so much." 

" Nil mortals nisi bonum," I thought would have been a better 
course. If he had reason to dislike him, he had better not have 
written since he was dead. 

" Perhaps — perhaps. But Gait has been all his life miserably 
poor, and lived by his books. That must be his apology. Do 
you know the D 'Israeli's in America ?" 

I assured her ladyship that the " Curiosities of Literature," by 
the father, and " Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming," by the 
son, were universally known. 

"I am pleased at that, too, for I like them both. D'Israeli 
the elder, came here with his son the other night. It would have 
delighted you to see the old man's pride in him. He is very 
fond of him, and as he was going away, he patted him on the head, 
and said to me, " take care of him, Lady Blessington, for my sake. 
He is a clever lad, but he wants ballast. I am glad he has the 
honor to know you, for you will check him sometimes when I am 
away !" D'Israeli, the elder, lives in the country, about twenty 
miles from town, and seldom comes up to London He is a very 
plain old man in his manners, as plain as his son is the reverse. 
D'Israeli, the younger, is quite his own character of Vivian Grey 
crowded with talent, but very soigne of his curls, and a bit of a 
coxcomb. There is no reserve about him, however, and he is the 
only joyous dandy I ever saw." 

I asked if the account I had seen in some American paper of 
a literary celebration at Canandaigua, and the engraving of her 
ladyship's name with some others upon a rock, was not a quiz. 



472 CONTRAST OF CRITICISM 



" Oh, by no means. I was equally flattered and amused by the 
whole affair. I have a great idea of taking a trip to America to 
see it. Then the letter, commencing c Most charming Countess 
— for charming you must be since you have written the conversa- 
tions of Lord Byron' — oh, it was quite delightful. I have shown 
it to everybody. By the way, I receive a great many letters 
from America, from people I never heard of, written in the most 
extraordinary style of compliment, apparently in perfectly good 
faith. I hardly know what to make of them." 

I accounted for it by the perfect seclusion in which great num- 
bers of cultivated people live in our country, who having neither 
intrigue, nor fashion, nor twenty other things to occupy their 
minds as in England, depend entirely upon books, and consider 
an author who has given them pleasure as a friend. America, I 
said, has probably more literary enthusiasts than any country in 
the world ; and there are thousands of romantic minds in the 
interior of New England, who know perfectly every writer this 
side the water, and hold them all in affectionate veneration, 
scarcely conceivable by a sophisticated European. If it were not 
for such readers, literature would be the most thankless of voca- 
tions. I, for one, would never write another line. 

u And do you think these are the people who write to me ? If' 
I could think so, I should be exceedingly happy. People in 
England are refined down to such heartlessness — criticism, pri- 
vate and public, is so interested and so cold, that it is really 
delightful to know there is a more generous tribunal. Indeed, I 
think all our authors now are beginning to write for America. 
We think already a great deal of your praise or censure." 

I asked if her ladyship had known many Americans. 

" Not in London, but a great many abroad. I was with Lord 



COUNTESS GUICCIOLT. 473 



Blessington in his yacht at Naples, when the American fleet was 
lying there, eight or ten years ago, and we were constantly on board 
your ships. I knew Commodore Creighton and Captain Deacon 
extremely well, and liked them particularly. They were with us, 
either on board the yacht or the frigate every evening, and I re- 
member very well the band playing always, M God save the King," 
as we went up the side. Count d'Orsay here, who spoke very 
little English at that time, had a great passion for Yankee Doodle, 
and it was always played at his request." 

The Count, who still speaks the language with a very slight 
accent, but with a choice of words that shows him to be a man of 
uncommon tact and elegance of mind, inquired after several of tho 
officers, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing. He Seemed 
to remember his visits to the frigate with great pleasure. The 
conversation, after running upon a variety of topics, which I 
could not with propriety put into a letter for the public eye, 
turned very naturally upon Byron. I had frequently seen the 
Countess G-uiccioli on the Continent, and I asked Lady Blessing- 
ton if she knew her. 

" No. We were at Pisa when they were living together, but, 
though Lord Blessington had the greatest curiosity to see her, 
Byron would never permit it. ' She has a red head of her own,' 
said he, 'and don't like to show it.' Byron treated the poor 
creature dreadfully ill. She feared more than she loved him. 

She had told me the same thing herself in Italy. 

It would be impossible, of course, to make a full and fair record 
of a conversation of some hours. I have only noted one or two 
topics which I thought most likely to interest an American reader. 
During all this long visit, however, my eyes were very busy in 



474 LADY BLESSINGTON. 



finishing for memory, a portrait of the celebrated and beautiful 
woman before me. 

The portrait of Lady Blessington in the Book of Beauty is not 
unlike her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by 
Sir Thomas Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the 
age of eighteen, which is more like her, and as captivating a 
representation of a just matured woman, full of loveliness and 
love, the kind of creature with whose divine sweetness the gazer's 
heart aches, as ever was drawn in the painter's most inspired hour. 
The original is now (she confessed it very frankly) forty. She 
looks something on the sunny side of thirty. Her person is full, 
but preserves all the fineness of an admirable shape ; her foot is 
not crowded in a satin slipper, for which a Cinderella might long 
be looked for in vain, and her complexion (an unusually fair skin, 
with very dark hair and eyebrows), is of even a girlish delicacy 
and freshness. Her dress of blue satin (if I am describing her 
like a miliner, it is because I have here and there a reader of the 
Mirror in my eye who will be amused by it), was cut low and 
folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the round 
and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite shoul- 
ders, while her hair dressed close to her head, and parted simply 
on her forehead with a rich ferroniere of turquoise, enveloped in 
clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault. 
Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of 
them, has a ripe fulness and freedom of play, peculiar to the Irish 
physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious gOocWrunior. 
Add to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always 
musical, and manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet 
even more remarkable for their winning kindness, and you have 
the most prominent traits of one of the most lovely and fascina- 



AN APOLOGY. 475 



ting women I have ever seen. Remembering her talents and 
her rank, and the unenvying admiration she receives from the 
world of fashion and genius, it would be difficult to reconcile her 
lot to the " doctrine of compensation." 

There is one remark I may as well make here, with regard to 
the personal descriptions and anecdotes with which my letters from 
England will of course be filled. It is quite a different thing 
from publishing such letters in London. America is much 
farther off from England than England from America. You in 
New York read the periodicals of this country, and know every- 
thing that is done or written here, as if you lived within the sound 
of Bow-bell. The English, however, just know of our existence, 
and if they get a general idea twice a year of our progress in 
politics, they are comparatively well informed. Our periodical 
literature is never even heard of. Of course there can be no 
offence to the individuals themselves in anything which a visitor 
could write, calculated to convey an idea of the person or manners 
of distinguished people to the American public. I mention it 
lest, at first thought, I might seem to have abused the hospitality 
or frankness of those on whom letters of introduction have given 
me claims for civility. 



LETTER LXIX. 



THE LITERATI OF LONDON. 



Spent my first day in London in wandering about the finest 
part of the West End. It is nonsense to compare it to any other 
city in the world. From the Horse-Guards to the Regent's Park 
alone, there is more magnificence in architecture than in the whole 
of any other metropolis in Europe, and I have seen the most and 
the best of them. Yet this, though a walk of more than two 
miles, is but a small part even of the fashionable extremity of 
London. I am not easily tired in a city ; but I walked till I 
could scarce lift my feet from the ground, and still the parks and 
noble streets extended before and around me as far as the eye 
could reach, and strange as they were in reality, the names were 
as familiar to me as if my childhood had been passed among 
them. "Bond Street," u Grosvenor Square," "Hyde Park," 
look new to my eye, but they sound very familiar to my ear. 

The equipages of London are much talked of, but they exceed 
even description. Nothing can be more perfect, or apparently 
more simple than the gentleman's carriage that passes you in the 
street. Of a modest color, but the finest material, the crest just 
visible on the panels, the balance of the body upon its springs, 
true and easy, the hammercloth and liveries of the neatest and 



AN EVENING AT LADY BLESSINGTON'S. 477 



most harmonious colors, the harness slight and elegant, and the 
horses " the only splendid thing" in the establishment — is a 
description that answers the most of them. Perhaps the most 
perfect thing in the world, however, is a St. James's-street 
stanhope or cabriolet, with its dandy owner on the whip-seat, and 
the " tigerV beside him. The attitudes of both the gentleman 
and the " gentleman's gentleman" are studied to a point, but 
nothing could be more knowing or exquisite than either. The 
whole affair, from the angle of the bell-crowned hat (the prevail- 
ing fashion on the steps of Crockford's at present), to the blood 
legs of the thorough-bred creature in harness, is absolutely 
faultless. I have seen many subjects for study in my first day's 
stroll, but I leave the men and women and some other less impor- 
tant features of London for maturer observation. 

In the evening I kept my appointment with Lady Blessington. 
She had deserted her exquisite library for the drawing-room, and 
sat, in fuller dress, with six or seven gentlemen about her. I 
was presented immediately to all, and when the conversation was 
resumed, I took the opportunity to remark the distinguished 
coterie with which she was surrounded. 

Nearest me sat Smith, the author of " Rejected Addresses"— 
a hale, handsome man, apparently fifty, with white hair, and a 
very nobly-formed head and physiognomy. His eye alone, small 
and with lids contracted into an habitual look of drollery, betrayed 
the bent of his genius. He held a cripple's crutch in his hand, 
and though otherwise rather particularly well dressed, wore a 
pair of large India rubber shoes — the penalty he was paying, 
doubtless, for the many good dinners he had eaten. He played 
rather an aside in the conversation, whipping in with a quiz or a 



478 FONBLA.NC. 



witticism whenever be could get an opportunity, but more a 
listener than a talker. 

On the opposite side of Lady B. stood Henry Bulwer, the 
brother of the novelist, very earnestly engaged in a discussion of 
some speech of O'Connell's. He is said by many to be as 
talented as his brother, and has lately published a book on the 
present state of France. He is a small man, very slight and 
gentleman-like, a little pitted with the small-pox, and of very 
winning and persuasive manners. I liked him at the first glance. 

His opponent in the argument was Fonblanc, the famous editor 
of the Examiner, said to be the best political writer of his day. 
I never saw a much worse face — sallow, seamed and hollow, his 
teeth irregular, his skin livid, his straight black hair uncombed 
and straggling over his forehead — he looked as if he might be the 
gentleman 

Whose " coat was red, and whose breeches were blue." 

A hollow, croaking voice, and a small, fiery black eye, with a 
smile like a skeleton's, certainly did not improve his physiog- 
nomy. He sat upon his chair very awkwardly, and was very 
ill-dressed, but every word he uttered, showed him to be a man 
of claims very superior to exterior attractions. The soft musical 
voice, and elegant manner of the one, and the satirical, sneering 
tone and angular gestures of the other, were in very strong 
contrast. 

A German prince, with a star on his breast, trying with all his 
might, but, from his embarrassed look, quite unsuccessfully, to 
comprehend the drift of the argument, the Duke de Richelieu, 
whom I had seen at the court of France, the inheritor of nothing 
but the nanie of his great ancestor, a dandy and a fool, making 



TRIBUTE TO AMERICAN AUTHORS. 479 



no attempt to listen ; a famous traveller just returned from 
Constantinople ; and the splendid person of Count D'Orsay in a 
careless attitude upon the ottoman, completed the cordon. 

I fell into conversation after a while with Smith, who, suppos- 
ing I might not have heard the names of the others, in the hurry 
of an introduction, kindly took the trouble to play the dictionary, 
and added a graphic character of each as he named him. Among 
other things he talked a great deal of America, and asked me if 
I knew our distinguished countryman, Washington Irving. I had 
never been so fortunate as to meet him. " You have lost a 
great deal," he said, " for never was so delightful a fellow. I 
was once taken down with him into the country by a merchant, 
to dinner. Our friend stopped his carriage at the gate of his 
park, and asked us if we would walk through his grounds to the 
house. Irving refused and held me down by the coat, so that 
we drove on to the house together, leaving our host to follow 
on foot. ' I make it a principle, 7 said Irving, ' never to walk 
with a man through his own grounds. I have no idea of praising 
a thing whether I like it or not. You and I will do them to- 
morrow morning by ourselves.'" The rest of the company had 
turned their attention to Smith as he began his story, and there 
was a universal inquiry after Mr. Irving. Indeed the first 
question on the lips of every one to whom I am introduced as an 
American, are of him and Cooper. The latter seems to me to 
be admired as much here as abroad, in spite of a common 
impression that he dislikes the nation. No man's works could 
have higher praise in the general conversation that followed, 
though several instances were mentioned of his having shown an 
unconquerable aversion to the English when in England. Lady 
Blessington mentioned Mr. Bryant, and I .was pleased at the 



480 A SKETCH OF BULWER. 



immediate tribute paid to his delightful poetry by the talented 
circle around her. 

Toward twelve o'clock, " Mr. Lytton Bulwer" was announced, 
and enter the author of Pelham. I had made up my mind how 
he should look, and between prints and descriptions thought I 
could scarcely be mistaken in my idea of his person. No two 
things could be more unlike, however, than the ideal Mr. Bulwer 
in my mind and the real Mr. Bulwer who followed the announce- 
ment. Imprimis, the gentleman who entered was not handsome. 
I beg pardon of the boarding-schools — but he really was not. 
The engraving of him published some time ago in America is as 
much like any other man living, and gives you no idea of his 
head whatever. He is short, very much bent in the back, 
slightly knock-kneed, and, if my opinion in such matters goes 
for anything, as ill-dressed a man for a gentleman, as you will 
find in London. His figure is slight and very badly put together, 
and the only commendable point in his person, as far as I could 
see, was the smallest foot I ever saw a man stand upon. An, 
reste, I liked his manners extremely. He ran up to Lady Bless- 
ington, with the joyous heartiness of a boy let out of school ; 
and the " how d'ye, Bulwer!" went round, as he shook hands 
with everybody, in the style of welcome usually given to " the 
best fellow in the world." As I had brought a letter of intro- 
duction to him from a friend in Italy, Lady Blessington introduced 
me particularly, and we had a long conversation about Naples 
and its pleasant society. 

Bulwer's head is phrenologically a fine one. His forehead 
retreats very much, but is very broad and well marked, and the 
whole air is that of decided mental superiority. His nose is 
aquiline, and far too large for proportion, though he conceals its 



LETTER LXIII. 

A MELANCHOLY PROCESSION LAGO MAGGIORE ISOLA BELLA 

THE SIMPLON MEETING A FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN THE VAL- 
LEY OF THE RHONE. 

In going out of the gates of Milan, we met a cart full 
of peasants, tied together and guarded by gens cVarmes, the fifth 
sight of the kind that has crossed us since we passed the Austrian 
border. The poor fellows looked very innocent and very sorry. 
The extent of their offences probably might be the want of a 
passport, and a desire to step over the limits of his majesty's 
possessions. A train of beautiful horses, led by soldiers along 
the ramparts, the property of the Austrian officers, were in mel- 
ancholy contrast to their sad faces. 

The clear snowy Alps soon came in sight, and their cold 

beauty refreshed us in the midst of a heat that prostrated every 

nerve in the system. It is only the first of May, and they are 

mowing the grass everywhere on the road, the trees are in their 

fullest leaf, the frogs and nightingales singing each other down, 

and the grasshopper would be a burden. Toward night we 

crossed the Sardinian frontier, and in an hour were set down at 

an auberge on the bank of Lake Maggiore, in the little town of 
19 



434 STILL IN ITALY. 



Arona. The mountains on the other side of the broad and 
inirror-like water, are speckled with ruined castles, here and 
there a boat is leaving its long line of ripples behind in its course, 
the cattle are loitering home, the peasants sit on the benches 
before their doors, and all the lovely circumstances of a rural 
summer's sunset are about us, in one of the very loveliest spots 
in nature. A very old Florence friend is my companion, and 
what with mutual reminiscences of sunny Tuscany, and the 
deepest love in common for the sky over our heads, and the 
green land around us, we are noting down " red days" in our 
calendar of travel. 

We walked from Arona by sunrise, four or five miles along 
the borders of Lake Maggiore. The kind-hearted peasants on 
their way to the market raised their hats to us in passing, and I 
was happy that the greeting was still " buon giorno." Those 
dark-lined mountains before us were to separate me too soon 
from the mellow accents in which it was spoken. As yet, how- 
ever, it was all Italian — the ultra- marine sky, the clear, half- 
purpled hills, the inspiring air — we felt in every pulse that it was 
still Italy. 

We were at Baveno at an early hour, and took a boat for Isola 
Bella. It looks like a gentleman's villa afloat. A boy would 
throw a stone entirely over it in any direction. It strikes you 
like a kind of toy as you look at it from a distance, and getting 
nearer, the illusion scarcely dissipates — for, from the water's 
edge, the orange-laden terraces are piled one above another like 
a pyramidal fruit-basket, the villa itself peers above like a sugar 
castle, and it scarce seems real enough to land upon. We pulled 
round to the northern side, and disembarked at a broad stone 



ISOLA BELLA. 435 



staircase, where a cicerone, with a look of suppressed wisdom, 
common to his vocation, met us with the offer of his services. 

The entrance-hall was hung with old armor, and a magnificent 
suite of apartments above, opening on all sides upon the lake, 
was lined thickly with pictures, none of them remarkable except 
one or two landscapes by the savage Tempesta. Travellers going 
the other way would probably admire the collection more than 
we. We were glad to be handed over by our pragmatical cus- 
tode to a pretty contadina, who announced herself as the gar- 
dener's daughter, and gave us each a bunch of roses. It was a 
proper commencement to an acquaintance upon Isola Bella. 
She led the way to the water's edge, where, in the foundations 
of the palace, a suite of eight or ten spacious rooms is con- 
structed a la grotte — with a pavement laid of small stones of 
different colors, walls and roof of fantastically set shells and 
pebbles, and statues that seem to have reason in their nudity. 
The only light came in at the long doors opening down to the 
lake, and the deep leather sofas, and dark cool atmosphere, with 
the light break of the waves outside, and the long views away 
toward Isola Madra, and the far-off opposite shore, composed 
altogether a most seductive spot for an indolent humor and a 
summer's day. I shall keep it as a cool recollection till sultry 
summers trouble me no more. 

But the garden was the prettiest place. The lake is lovely 
enough any way ; but to look at it through perspectives of orange 
alleys, and have the blue mountains broken by stray branches of 
tulip-trees, clumps of crimson rhododendron, and clusters of cit- 
ron, yellower than gold ; to sit on a garden-seat in the shade of a 
thousand roses, with sweet-scented shrubs and verbenums, and a 
mixture of novel and delicious perfumes embalming the air about 



436 ASCENT OF THE SIMPLON. 



you, and gaze up at snowy Alps and sharp precipices, and down 
upon a broad smooth mirror in which the islands lie like clouds, 
and over which the boats are silently creeping with their white 
sails, like birds asleep in the sky — why (not to disparage nature), 
it seems to my poor judgment, that these artificial appliances are 
an improvement even to Lago Maggiore. 

On one side, without the villa walls, are two or three small 
houses, one of which is occupied as a hotel ; and here, if I had a 
friend with matrimony in his eye, would I strongly recommend 
lodgings for the honeymoon. A prettier cage for a pair of billing 
doves no poet would conceive you. 

We got on to Domo d'Ossola to sleep, saying many an oft-said 
thing about the entrance to the valleys of the Alps. They seem 
common when spoken of, these romantic places, but they are not 
the less new in the glow of a first impression. 

We were a little in start of the sun this morning, and com- 
menced the ascent of the Simplon by a gray summer's dawn, be- 
fore which the last bright star had not yet faded. From Domo 
d'Ossola we rose directly into the mountains, and soon wound into 
the wildest glens by a road which was flung along precipices and 
over chasms and waterfalls like a waving riband. The horses 
went on at a round trot, and so skilfully are the difficulties of the 
ascent surmounted, that we could not believe we had passed the 
spot that from below hung above us so appallingly. The route 
follows the foaming river Vedro, which frets and plunges along at 
its side or beneath its hanging bridges, with the impetuosity of a 
mountain torrent, where the stream is swollen at every short dis- 
tance with pretty waterfalls, messengers from the melting snows 
on the summits. There was one, a w&ter-slide rather than a fall, 
which I stopped long to admire. It came from near the peak of 



FAREWELL TO ITALY. 437 



the mountain, leaping at first from a green clump of firs, and de- 
scending a smooth inclined plane, of perhaps two hundred feet. 
The effect was like drapery of the most delicate lace, dropping 
into festoons from the hand. The slight waves overtook each 
other and mingled and separated, always preserving their ellipti- 
cal and foaming curves, till, in a smooth scoop near the bottom, 
they gathered into a snowy mass, and leaped into the Vedro in 
the shape of a twisted shell. If wishing could have witched it 
into Mr. Cole's sketch-book, he would have a new variety of 
water for his next composition. 

After seven hours' driving, which scarce seemed ascending but 
for the snow and ice and the clear air it brought us into, we stop- 
ped to breakfast at the village of Simplon, " three thousand, two 
hundred and sixteen feet above the sea level." Here we first 
realized that we had left Italy. The landlady spoke French and 
the postillions German ! My sentiment has grown threadbare 
with travel, but I don't mind confessing that the circumstance 
gave me an unpleasant thickness in the throat I threw open the 
southern window, and looked back toward the marshes of Lom- 
bardy, and if I did not say the poetical thing, it was because 

" It is the silent grief that cuts the heart-strings." 

In sober sadness, one may well regret any country where his life 
has been filled fuller than elsewhere of sunshine and gladness ; 
and such, by a thousand enchantments, has Italy been to me. 
Its climate is life in my nostrils, its hills and valleys are the 
poetry of such things, and its marbles, pictures, and palaces, beset 
the soul like the very necessities of existence. You can exist 
elsewhere, but oh ! you live in Italy ! 



438 AN AMERICAN. 



I was sitting by my English companion on a sledge in front of 
the hotel, enjoying the sunshine, when the diligence drove up, 
and six or eight young men alighted. One of them, walking up 
and down the road to get the cramp of a confined seat out of his 
legs, addressed a remark to us in English. We had neither of 
us seen him before, but we exclaimed simultaneously, as he 
turned away, " That's an American." " How did you know he 
was not an Englishman ?'' I asked. " Because," said my friend, 
" he spoke to us without an introduction and without a reason, as 
Englishmen are not in the habit of doing, and because he ended 
his sentence with c sir,' as no Englishman does except he is 
talking to an inferior, or wishes to iusult you. And how did you 
know it ?" asked he. " Partly by instinct," I answered, " but 
more, because though a traveller, he wears a new hat that cost 
him ten dollars, and a new cloak that cost him fifty, (a peculiarly 
American extravagance,) because he made no inclination of his 
body either in addressing or leaving us, though his intention was 
to be civil, and because he used fine dictionary words to express 
a common idea, which, by the way, too, betrays his southern 
breeding. And if you want other evidence, he has just asked 
the gentleman near him to ask the conducteur something about 
his breakfast, and an American is the only man in the world who 
ventures to come abroad without at least French enough to keep 
himself from starving." It may appear ill-natured to write 
down such criticisms on one's own countryman ; but the national 
peculiarities by which we are distinguished from foreigners, 
seemed so well defined in this instance, that I thought it worth 
mentioning. We found afterward that our conjecture was right. 
His name and country were on the brass plate of his portmanteau 
in most legible letters, and I recognized it directly as the address 



DESCENT OF THE SIMPLON. 439 



of an amiable and excellent man, of whom I had once or twice 
heard in Italy, though I had never before happened to meet him. 
Three of the faults oftenest charged upon our countrymen, are 
over-fine dotfies, over fine-words, and over-fine, or over-free 
manners ! 

From Simplon we drove two or three miles between heaps of 
snow, lying in some places from ten to six feet deep. Seven 
hours before, we had ridden through fields of grain almost ready 
for the harvest. After passing one or two galleries built over 
the road to protect it from the avalanches where it ran beneath 
the loftier precipices, we got out of the snow, and saw Brio-, the 
small town at the foot of the Simplon, on the other side, lying 
almost directly beneath us. It looked as if one might toss his 
cap down into its pretty gardens. Yet we were four or five 
hours in reaching it, by a road that seemed in most parts scarcely 
to descend at all. The views down the valley of the Rhone, 
which opened continually before us, were of exquisite beauty, 
The river itself, which is here near its source, looked like a 
meadow rivulet in its silver windings, and the gigantic Helvetian 
Alps which rose in their snow on the other side of the valley, 
were glittering in the slant rays of a declining sun, and of a 
grandeur of size and outline which diminished, even more than 
distance, the river and the clusters of villages at their feet. 



LETTER LXIV. 

SWITZERLAND LA VALAIS THE CRETINS AND THE GOITRES A 

FRENCHMAN'S OPINION OF NIAGARA LAKE LEMAN CASTLE 

OF CHILLOxV ROCKS OF MEILLERIE REPUBLICAN AIR MONT 

BLANC GENEVA THE STEAMER PARTING SORROW. 

We have been two days and a half loitering down through the 
Swiss canton of Valais, and admiring every hour the magnifi- 
cence of these snow-capped and green-footed Alps. The little 
chalets seem just lodged by accident on the crags, or stuck 
against slopes so steep, that the mowers of the mountain-grass 
are literally let down by ropes to their dizzy occupation. The 
goats alone seem to have an exemption from all ordinary laws of 
gravitation, feeding against cliffs which it makes one giddy to 
look on only ; and the short-waisted girls dropping a courtesy 
and blushing as they pass the stranger, emerge from the little 
mountain-paths, and stop by the first spring, to put on their 
shoes and arrange their ribands coquetishly, before entering the 
village. 

The two dreadful curses of these valleys meet one at every 
step — the cretins y or natural fools, of which there is at least one 
in every family ; and the goitre or swelled throat, to which there 
is hardly an exception among the women. It really makes travel- 



THE CRETINS— THE GOITRE. 441 



ling in Switzerland a melancholy business, with all its beauty ; at 
every turn in the road, a gibbering and moaning idiot, and in 
every group of females, a disgusting array of excrescences too 
common even to be concealed. Really, to see girls that else 
were beautiful, arrayed in all their holyday finery, but with a 
defect that makes them monsters to the unaccustomed eye, their 
throats swollen to the size of their heads, seems to me one of the 
most curious and pitiable things I have met in my wanderings. 
Many attempts have been made to account for the growth of the 
goitre, but it is yet unexplained. The men are not so subject to 
it as the women, though among them, even, it is frightfully 
common. But how account for the continual production by 
ordinary parents of this brute race of cretins ? They all look 
alike, dwarfish, large-mouthed, grinning, and of hideous features 
and expression. It is said that the children of strangers, born in 
the valley, are very likely to be idiots, resembling the cretin 
exactly. It seems a supernatural curse upon the land. The 
Valaisians, however, consider it a blessing to have one in the 
family. 

The dress of the women of La Valais is excessively unbe- 
coming, and a pretty face is rare. Their manners are kind and 
polite, and at the little auberges, where we have stopped on the 
road, there has been a cleanliness and a generosity in the supply 
of the table, which prove virtues among them, not found in Italy. 

At Turttman, we made a little excursion into the mountains to 

see a cascade. It falls about a hundred feet, and has just now 

more water than usual from the melting of the snows. It is a 

pretty fall. A Frenchman writes in the book of the hotel, that 

he has seen Niagara and Trenton Falls, in America, and that 

they do not compare with the cascade of Turttmann ! 
19* 



442 FIRST SIGHT OF LAKE LEMAN. 



From Martigny the scenery began to grow richer, and after 
passing the celebrated Fall of the Pissevache (which springs 
from the top of a high Alp almost into the road, and is really a 
splendid cascade), we approached Lake Leman in a gorgeous 
sunset. We rose a slight hill, and over the broad sheet of 
water on the opposite shore, reflected with all its towers in a 
mirror of gold, lay the castle of Chillon. A bold green moun- 
tain, rose steeply behind, the sparkling village of Vevey lay 
farther down on the water's edge ; and away toward the sinking 
sun, stretched the long chain of the Jura, teinted with all the 
hues of a dolphin. Never was such a lake of beauty — or it 
never sat so pointedly for its picture. Mountains and water, 
chateaux and shallops, vineyards and verdure, could do no more. 
"We left the carriage and walked three or four miles along the 
southern bank, under the " Rocks of Meillerie, ,, and the spirit of 
St. Preux's Julie, if she haunt the scene where she caught her 
death, of a sunset in May, is the most enviable of ghosts. I do 
not wonder at the prating in albums of Lake Leman. For me, 
it is (after Val d'Arno from Fiesoli) the ne plus ultra of a 
scenery Paradise. 

We are stopping for the night at St. Gingoulf, on a swelling 
bank of the lake, and we have been lying under the trees in 
front of the hotel till the last perceptible teint is gone from the 
sky over Jura. Two pedestrian gentlemen, with knapsacks and 
dogs, have just arrived, and a whole family of French people, 
including parrots and monkeys, came in before us, and are deaf- 
ening the house with their chattering. A cup of coffee, and then 
good night ! 

My companion, who has travelled all over Europe on foot, 
confirms my opinion that there is no drive on the continent, epal 



MONT BLANC. 443 



to the forty miles between the rocks of Meillerie and Geneva, on 
the southern bank of the Leman. The lake is not often much 
broader than the Hudson, the shores are the noble mountains 
sung so gloriously by Childe Harold ; Vevey, Lausanne, Copet, 
and a string of smaller villages, all famous in poetry and story, 
fringe the opposite water's edge with cottages and villages, while 
you wind for ever along a green lane following the bend of the 
shore, the road as level as your hall pavement, and green hills 
massed up with trees and verdure, overshadowing you continually. 
The world has a great many sweet spots in it, and I have found 
many a one which would make fitting scenery for the brightest 
act of life's changeful drama — but here is one, where it seems to 
me as difficult not to feel genial and kindly, as for Taglioni to 
keep from floating away like a smoke-curl when she is dancing in 
La Bayadere. 

We passed a bridge and drew in a long breath to try the 
difference in the air — we were in the republic of Geneva. It 
smelt very much as it did in the dominions of his majesty of 
Sardinia — sweet-briar, hawthorn, violets and all. I used to 
think when I first came from America, that the flowers (republi- 
cans by nature as well as birds) were less fragrant under a 
monarchy. 

Mont Blanc loomed up very white in the south, but like other 
distinguished persons of whom we form an opinion from the 
description of poets, the " monarch of mountains" did not seem 
to me so very superior to his fellows. After a look or two at 
him as we approached Geneva, I ceased straining my head out of 
the cabriolet, and devoted my eyes to things more within the 
scale of my affections — the scores of lovely villas sprinkling the 
hills and valleys by which wo approached the city. Sweet-— 



444 JUNE IN GENEVA. 



sweet places they are to be sure ! And then the month is May, 
and the straw-bonneted and white-aproned girls, ladies and 
peasants alike, were all out at their porches and balconies, lover- 
like couples were sauntering down the park-lanes, one servant 
passed us with a tri-cornered blue billet-doux between his thumb 
and finger, the nightingales were singing their very hearts away 
to the new-blown roses, and a sense of summer and seventeen, 
days of sunshine and sonnet-making, came over me irresistibly. 
I should like to see June out in G-eneva. 

The little steamer that makes the tour of Lake Leman, began 
to u phiz" by sunrise directly under the windows of our hotel. 
We were soon on the pier, where our entrance into the boat was 
obstructed by a weeping cluster of girls, embracing and parting 
very unwillingly with a young lady of some eighteen years, who 
was lovely enough to have been wept for by as many grown-up 
gentlemen. Her own tears were under better government, 
though her sealed lips showed that she dared not trust herself 
with her voice. After another and another lingering kiss, the 
boatman expressed some impatience, and she tore herself from 
their arms and stepped into the waiting batteau. We were soon 
along side the steamer, and sooner under way, and then, having 
given one wave of her handkerchief to the pretty and sad group 
on the shore, our fair fellow-passenger gave way to her feelings, 
and sinking upon a seat, burst into a passionate flood of tears. 
There was no obtruding on such sorrow, and the next hour or 
two were employed by my imagination in filling up the little 
drama, of which we had seen but the touching conclusion. 

I was pleased to find the boat (a new one) called the lt Wink- 
elreid," in compliment to the vessel which makes the same 



THE WINKELREID. 445 



voyage in Cooper's " Headsman of Berne." The day altogether 
had begun like a chapter in a romance. 

" Lake Leman wooed us with its crystal face," 

but there was the filmiest conceivable veil of mist over its 
unruffled mirror, and the green uplands that rose from its edge 
had a softness like dreamland upon their verdure. I know not 
whether the tearful girl whose head was drooping over the railing 
felt the sympathy, but 1 could not help thanking nature for her, 
in my heart, the whole scene was so of the complexion of her 
own feelings. I could have " thrown my ring into the sea," like 
Policrates Samius, " to have cause for sadness too." 

The " Winkelreid" has (for a republican steamer), rather the 
aristocratical arrangement of making those who walk aft the 
funnel pay twice as much as those who choose to promenade 
forward — for no earthly reason that I can divine, other than 
that those who pay dearest have the full benefit of the oily 
gases from the machinery, while the humbler passenger breathes 
the air of heaven before it has passed through that improving 
medium. Our youthful Niobe, two French ladies not particu- 
larly pretty, an Englishman with a fishing-rod and gun, and a 
coxcomb of a Swiss artist to whom I had taken a special aversion 
at Rome*, from a criticism I overheard upon my favorite picture 
in the Colonna, my friends and myself, were the exclusive 
inhalers of the oleaginous atmosphere of the stern. A crowd of 
the ark's own miscellaneousness thronged the forecastle — and so 
you have the programme of a day on Lake Leman. 



LETTER LXV. 

LAKE LEMAN AMERICAN APPEARANCE OF THE GENEVESE — 

STEAMBOAT OF THE RHONE GIBBON AND ROUSSEAU ADVEN- 
TURE OF THE LILIES GENEVESE JEWELLERS RESIDENCE OF 

VOLTAIRE BYRON'S NIGHT-CAP VOLTAIRE'S WALKING-STICK 

AND STOCKINGS. 

The water of Lake Leman looks very like other water, though 
Byron and Shelley were nearly drowned in it ; and Copet, a 
little village on the Helvetian side, where we left three women 
and took up one man (the village ought to be very much obliged 
to us), is no Paradise, though Madame de Stael made it her 
residence. There are Paradises, however, with very short 
distances between, all the way down the northern shore ; and 
angels in them, if women are angels — a specimen or two of the 
sex being visible with the aid of the spyglass, in nearly every 
balcony and belvidere, looking upon the water. The taste in 
country-houses seems to be here very much the same as in New 
England, and quite unlike the half-palace, half-castle style 
common in Italy and France. Indeed the dress, physiognomy, 
and manners of old G-eneva might make an American Genevese 
fancy himself at home on the Leman. There is that subdued 



AMERICAN AND GENEVESE STEAMERS. 447 



decency, that grave respectableness, that black-coated, straight- 
haired, saint-like kind of look which is universal in the small towns 
of our country, and which is as unlike France and Italy, as a 
playhouse is unlike a Methodist chapel. You would know the 
people of Geneva were Calvinists, whisking through the town 
merely in a diligence. 

I lost sight of the town of Morges, eating a tete-a-tete 
breakfast with my friend in the cabin. Switzerland is the only 
place out of America where one gets cream for his coffee. I cry, 
Morges mercy on that plea. 

We were at Lausanne at eleven, having steamed forty miles in 
five hours. This is not quite up to the thirty-milers on the 
Hudson, of which I see accounts in the papers, but we had the 
advantage of not being blown up, either going or coming, and of 
looking for a continuous minute on a given spot in the scenery. 
Then we had an iron railing between us and that portion of the 
passengers who prefer garlic to lavender-water, and we achieved 
our breakfast without losing our tempers or complexions, in a 
scramble. The question of superiority between Swiss and 
American steamers, therefore, depends very much on the value 
you set on life, temper, and time. For me, as my time is not 
measured in "diamond sparks," and as my life anl temper are 
the only gifts with which fortune has blessed me, I prefer the 
Swiss. 

Gibbon lived at Lausanne, and wrote here the last chapter of 
his History of Rome — a circumstance which he records with 
affection. It is a spot of no ordinary beauty, and the public 
promenade, where we sat and looked over to Vevey and Ohillon, 
and the Rocks of Meillerie, and talked of Rousseau, and agreed 
that it was a scene, " faitepour une Julie, pour une Claire, et pour 



448 LILLIES OF THE VALLEY. 



un Saint Preuxf is one of the places, where, if I were to u play 
statue," I should like to grow to ray seat, and compromise, merely, 
for eyesight. We have one thing against Lausanne, however, — 
it is up hill and a mile from the water ; and if Gribbon walked 
often from Ouchet at noon, and " larded the way" as freely as 
we, I make myself certain he was not the fat man his biographers 
have drawn him. 

There were some other circumstances at Lausanne which 
interested us — but which criticism has decided can not be 
obtruded upon the public. We looked about for " Julie" and 
" Clare," spite of Rousseau's " ne les y cherchez pas," and gave a 
blind beggar a sous (all he asked) for a handful of lilies-of-the- 
valley, pitying him ten times more than if he had lost his eyes 
out of Switzerland. To be blind on Lake Leman ! blind within 
sight of Mont Blanc ! We turned back to drop another sous 
into his hat, as we reflected upon it. 

The return steamer from Vevey (I was sorry not to go to 
Vevey for Rousseau's sake, and as much for Cooper's), took us 
up on its way to Geneva, and we had the advantage of seeing th e 
same scenery in a different light. Trees, houses, and mountains, 
are so much finer seen against the sun, with the deep shadows 
toward you ! 

Sitting by the stern, was a fat and fair Frenchwoman, who, like 
me, had bought lilies, and about as many. With a very natural 
facility of dramatic position, 1 imagined it had established a kind 
of sympathy between us, and proposed to myself, somewhere in 
the fair hours, to make it serve as an introduction. She went 
into the cabin after a while, to lunch on cutlets and beer, and 
returned to the deck without her lilies. Mine lay beside mo, 
within reach of her four fingers ; and, as I was making up my 



A FRENCHMAN'S APOLOGY. 449 



mind to offer to replace her loss, she coolly took them up, and 
without even a French monosyllable, commenced throwing them 
overboard, stem by stem. It was very clear she had mistaken 
them for her own. As the last one flew over the tafferel, the 
gentleman who paid for la Mere et les cottelettes, husband or lover, 
came up with a smile and a flourish, and reminded her that she 
had left her bouquet between the mustard and the beer bottle. 
Scquiter, a scene. The lady apologized, and I disclaimed ; and 
the more 1 insisted on the delight she had given me by throwing 
my pretty lilies into Lake Leman, the more she made herself 
unhappy, and insisted on my being inconsolable. One should 
come abroad to know how much may be said upon throwing 
overboard a bunch of lilies ! 

The clouds gathered, and we had some hopes of a storm, but the 
" darkened Jura" was merely dim, and the " live thunder" waited 
for another Childe Harold. We were at Geneva at seven, and 
had the whole population to witness our debarkation. The pier 
where we landed, and the new bridge across the outlet of the 
Rhone, are the evening promenade. 

The far-famed jewellers of G-eneva are rather an aristocratic 
class of merchants. They are to be sought in chambers, and 
their treasures are produced box by box, from locked drawers, 
and bought, if at all, without the pleasure of " beating down." 
They are, withal, a gentlemanly class of men ; and, of the 
principal one, as many stories are told as of Beau Brummel. 
He has made & fortune by his shop, and has the manners of a 
man who can afford to buy the jewels out of a king's crown. 

We were sitting at the table cPhote, with about forty people, on 
the first day of our arrival, when the servant brought us each a 
gilt-edged note, sealed with an elegant device ; invitations, wo 



450 GENEVESE WOMEN. 



presumed, to a ball, at least. Mr. So-and-so (1 forget the name), 
begged pardon for the liberty he had taken, and requested us to 
call at his shop in the Rue de Rhone, and look at his varied 
assortment of bijouterie. A card was enclosed, and the letter in 
courtly English. We went, of course ; as who would not ? The 
cost to him was a sheet of paper, and the trouble of sending to 
the hotel for a list of the new arrivals. I recommend the system 
to all callow Yankees, commencing a " pushing business." 

Geneva is full of foreigners in the summer, and it has quite 
the complexion of an agreeable place. The environs are, of 
course, unequalled, and the town itself is a stirring and gay 
capital, full of brilliant shops, handsome streets and promenades, 
where everything is to be met but pretty women. Female 
beauty would come to a good market anywhere in Switzerland. 
We have seen but one pretty girl (our Niobe of the steamer), 
since we lost sight of Lombardy. They dress well here, and 
seem modest, and have withal an air of style ; but of some five 
hundred ladies, whom I may have seen in the valley of the Rhone 
and about this neighborhood, it would puzzle a modern Appelles 
to compose an endurable Venus. I understand a fair country- 
woman of ours is about taking up her residence in Geneva ; and 
if Lake Leman does not " woo her," and the " live thunder" 
leap down from Jura, the jewellers, at least, will crown her 
queen of the Canton, and give her the tiara at cost. 

I hope " Maria Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs" will forgive me 
for having gone to Femey in an omnibus ! Voltaire lived just 
under the Jura, on a hill-side, overlooking Geneva and the lake, 
with a landscape before him in the foreground, that a painter 
could not improve, and Mont Blanc and its neighbor mountains, 
the breaks to his horizon. At six miles off, Geneva looks very 



VOLTAIRE'S ROOM. 451 



beautifully, astride the exit of the Rhone from the lake ; and the 
lake itself looks more like a broad river, with its edges of 
verdure and its outer-frame of mountains. We walked up an 
avenue to a large old villa, embosomed in trees, where an old 
gardener appeared, to show us the grounds. We said the proper 
thing under the tree planted by the philosopher, fell in love with 
the view from twenty points, met an English lady in one of the 
arbors, the wife of a French nobleman to whom the house 
belongs, and were bowed into the hall by the old man and handed 
over to his daughter to be shown the curiosities of the interior. 
These were Voltaire's rooms, just as he left them. The ridicu- 
lous picture of his own apotheosis, painted under his own 
direction, and representing him offering his Henriade to Apollo, 
with all the authors of his time dying of envy at his feet, 
occupies the most conspicuous place over his chamber-door. 
Within was his bed, the curtains nibbled quite bare by relic- 
gathering travellers ; a portrait of the Empress Catharine, 
embroidered by her own hand, and presented to Voltaire ; his 
own portrait and Frederick the Great's, and many of the philos- 
ophers', including Franklin. A little monument stands opposite 
the fireplace, with the inscription, " mon esprit est par tout, et man 
cceur est id." It is a snug little dormitory, opening with one 
window to the west; and, to those who admire the character of 
the once illustrious occupant, a place for very tangible musing. 
They showed us afterward his walking-stick, a pair of silk- 
stockings he had half worn, and a night-cap. The last article is 
getting quite fashionable as a relic of genius. They show 
Byron's at Venice. 



LETTER LXVI. 

PRACTICAL BATHOS OF CELEBRATED PLACES TRAVELLING COM- 
PANIONS AT THE SIMPLON CUSTOM-HOUSE COMFORTS TRIALS 

OF TEMPER CONQUERED AT LAST ! DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF 

FRANCE, ITALY, AND SWITZERLAND FORCE OF POLITENESS. 

Whether it was that I had offended the genius of the spot, by 
coming in an omnibus, or from a desire I never can resist in such 
places, to travesty and ridicule the mock solemnities with which 
they are exhibited, certain it is that I left Ferney, without hav- 
ing encountered, even in the shape of a more serious thought, the 
spirit of Voltaire. One reads the third canto of Childe Harold 
in his library, and feels as if " Lausanne and Ferney" should be 
very interesting places to the traveller, and yet when he is shown 
Gibbon's bower by a fellow scratching his head and hitching up 
his trousers the while, and the nightcap that enclosed the busy 
brain from which sprang the fifty brilliant tomes on his shelves, by 
a country-girl, who hurries through her drilled description, with 
her eye on the silver douceur in his fingers, he is very likely to 
rub his hand over his eyes, and disclaim, quite honestly, all pre- 
tensions to enthusiasm. And yet, I dare say, I shall have a 



THE JURA. 453 



great deal of pleasure in remembering that I have been at Ferney 
As an English traveller would say, " I have done Voltaire !" 

Quite of the opinion that it was not doing justice to Geneva to 
have made but a three days' stay in it, regretting not having seen 
Sismondi and Simond, and a whole coterie of scholars and authors, 
whose home it is, and with a mind quite made up to return to 
Switzerland, when my beaux jours of love, money, and leisure, 
shall have arrived, I crossed the Rhone at sunrise, and turned 
my face toward Paris. 

The Simplon is much safer travelling than the pass of the Jura. 
We were all day getting up the mountains by roads that would 
make me anxious, if there were a neck in the carriage I would rather 
should not be broken. My company, fortunately, consisted of 
three Scotch spinsters, who would try any precipice of the Jura, 
I think, if there were a lover at the bottom. If the horses had 
backed in the wrong place, it would have been to all three, I am 
sure, a deliverance from a world. in whose volume of happiness, 

" their leaf 
By some o'er-hasty angel was misplaced-" 

As to my own neck and my friend's, there is a special providence 
for bachelors, even if they were of importance enough to merit a 
care. Spinsters and bachelors, we all arrived safely at Rousses, 
the entrance to France, and here, if I were to write before 
repeating the alphabet, you would see what a pen could do in a 
passion. 

The carriage was stopped by three custom-house officers, and 
taken under a shed, where the doors were closed behind it. We 
were then required to dismount and give our honors that we had 



454 ARRIVAL AT MOREZ. 



nothing new in the way of clothes ; no " jewelry ; no unused 
manufactures of wool, thread, or lace ; no silk of floss silk ; no 
polished metals, plated or varnished ; no toys, (except a heart 
each) ; nor leather, glass, or crystal manufactures." So far, I 
kept my temper. 

Our trunks, carpet-bags, hat-boxes, dressing-cases, and port- 
feuilles, were then dismounted and critically examined — every 
dress and article unfolded ; shirts, cravats, unmentionables and 
all, and searched thoroughly by two ruffians, whose fingers were 
no improvement upon the labors of the washerwoman. In an 
hour's time or so we were allowed to commence repacking. Still, 
I kept my temper. 

"We were then requested to walk into a private room, while the 
ladies, for the same purpose, were taken, by a woman, into an- 
other. Here we were requested to unbutton our coats, and, beg- 
ging pardon for the liberty, these courteous gentlemen thrust 
their hands into our pockets, felt in our bosoms, pantaloons, and 
shoes, examined our hats, and even eyed our " pet curls" very 
earnestly, in the expectation of finding us crammed with Geneva 
jewelry. Still, I kept my temper. 

Our trunks were then put upon the carriage, and a sealed 
string put upon them, which we were not to cut till we arrived in 
Paris. (Nine days!) They then demanded to be paid for the 
sealing, and the fellows who had unladen the carriage were to be 
paid for their labor. This done, we were permitted to drive on. 
Still, I kept my temper ! 

We arrived, in the evening, at Morez, in a heavy rain. We 
were sitting around a comfortable fire, and the soup and fish were 
just brought upon the table. A soldier entered and requested us 
to walk to the police-office. " But it rains hard, and our dinner 



LOST MY TEMPER. 455 



is just ready." The man in the mustache was inexorable. The 
commissary closed his office at eight, and we must go instantly to 
certify to our passports, and get new ones for the interior. 
Cloaks and umbrellas were brought, and, bon gre, mal gre, we 
walked half a mile in the mud and rain to a dirty commissary, 
who kept us waiting in the dark fifteen minutes, and then, mak- 
ing out a description of the person of each, demanded half a dol- 
lar for the new passport, and permitted us to wade back to our 
dinner. This had occupied an hour, and no improvement to 
soup or fish. Still, I kept my temper — rather ! 

The next morning, while we were forgetting the annoyances 
of the previous night, and admiring the new-pranked livery of 
May by a glorious sunshine, a civil arretez vous brought up the 
carriage to the door of another custom-house ! The order was to 
dismount, and down came once more carpet-bags, hat-boxes, and 
dressing-cases, and a couple of hours were lost again in a fruitless 
search for contraband articles. When it was all through, and the 
ofiicers and men paid as before, we were permitted to proceed 
with the gracious assurance that we should not be troubled again 
till we got to Paris ! I bade the commissary good morning, 
felicitated him on the liberal institutions of his country and his 
zeal in the exercise of his own agreeable vocation, and — I am 
free to confess — lost my temper ! Job and Xantippe's husband ! 
could I help it ! 

I confess I expected better things of France. In Italy, 
where you come to a new dukedom every half-day, you do not 
much mind opening your trunks, for they are petty princes and 
need the pitiful revenue of contraband articles and the officer's 
fee. Yet even they leave the person of the traveller sacred ; and 
where in the world, except in France, is a party, travelling evi- 



456 NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 



dently for pleasure, subjected twice at the same border to the de- 
grading indignity of a search ! Ye " hunters of Kentucky" — 
thank heaven that you can go into Tennessee without having 
your " plunder" overhauled and your pockets searched by suc- 
cessive parties of scoundrels, whom you are to pay " by order of 
the government," for their trouble ! 



The Simplon, which you pass in a day, divides two nations, 
each other's physical and moral antipodes. The handsome, pic- 
turesque, lazy, unprincipled Italian, is left in the morning iu his 
own dirty and exorbitant inn ; and, on the evening of the same 
day, having crossed but a chain of mountains, you find yourself 
in a clean auberge, nestled in the bosom of a Swiss valley, an- 
other language spoken around you, and in the midst of a people, 
who seem to require the virtues they possess to compensate them 
for more than their share of uncomeliness. You travel a day or 
two down the valley of the Rhone, and when you are become 
reconciled to cretins and goitres, and ill-dressed and worse formed 
men and women, you pass in another single day the chain of the 
Jura, and find yourself in France — a country as different from 
both Switzerland and Italy, as they are from each other. How is 
it that these diminutive cantons preserve so completely their 
nationality ? It seems a problem to the traveller who passes from 
one to the. other without leaving his carriage. 

One is compelled to like France in spite of himself. You are 
no sooner over the Jura than you are enslaved, past all possible 
ill-humor, by the universal politeness. You stop for the night 
at a place, which, as my friend remarked, resembles an inn only 



BULWER'S CONVERSATION. 481 



extreme prominence by an immense pair of red whiskers, which 
entirely conceal the lower part of his face in profile. His com- 
plexion is fair, his hair profuse, curly, and of a light auburn, his 
eye not remarkable, and his mouth contradictory, I should think, 
of all talent- A more good-natured, habitually-smiling, nerveless 
expression could hardly be imagined. Perhaps my impression is 
an imperfect one, as he was in the highest spirits, and was not 
serious the whole evening for a minute — but it is strictly and 
faithfully my impression. 

I can imagine no style of conversation calculated to be more 
agreeable than Bulwer's. Gray, quick, various, half-satirical, and 
always fresh and different from everbody else, he seemed to talk 
because he could not help it, and infected everybody with his 
spirits. I can not give evejj the substance of it in a letter, 
for it was in a great measure local or personal. A great deal of 
fun was made of a proposal by Lady Blessington to take Bulwer 
to America and show him at so much a head. She asked me 
whether I thought it would be a good speculation. I took upon 
myself to assure her ladyship, that, provided she played showman 
the " concern," as they would phrase it in America, would be 
certainly a profitable one. Bulwer said he would rather go in 
disguise and hear them abuse his books. It would be pleasant, 
he thought, to hear the opinions of people who judged him neither 
as a member of parliament nor a dandy — simply a book-maker. 
Smith asked him if he kept an amanuensis. "No," he said, " I 
scribble it all out myself, and send it to the press in a most 
ungentlemanlike hand, half print and half hieroglyphic, with all 
its imperfections on its head, and correct in the proof — very 
much to the dissatisfaction of the publisher, who sends me in a 

bill of sixteen pounds six shillings and fourpence for extra correo- 
21 



482 AN AUTHOR HIS OWN CRITIC. 



tions. Then I am free to confess I don't know grammar. Lady 
Blessington, do you know grammar ? I detest grammar. There 
never was such a thing heard of before Lindley Murray. I 
wonder what they did for grammar before his day ! Oh, the 
delicious blunders one sees when they are irretrievable ! And 
the best of it is, the critics never get hold of them. Thank 
Heaven for second editions, that one may scratch out his blots, 
and go down clean and gentleman-like to posterity!" Smith 
asked him if he had ever reviewed one of his own books. " No 
— but I could ! And then how I should like to recriminate and 
defend myself indignantly ! I think I could be preciously 
severe. Depend upon it nobody knows a book's defects half so 
well as its author. I have a great idea of criticising my works 
for my posthumous memoirs. Shall I, Smith ? Shall I, Lady 
Blessington ?" 

Bulwer's voice, like his brother's, is exceedingly lover-like and 
sweet. His playful tones are quite delicious, and his clear laugh 
is the soul of sincere and careless merriment. 

It is quite impossible to convey in a letter scrawled literally, 
between the end of a late visit and a tempting pillow, the 
evanescent and pure spirit of a conversation of wits. I must 
confine myself, of course, in such sketches, to the mere sentiment 
of things that concern general literature and ourselves. 

" The Rejected Addresses" got upon his crutches about three 
o'clock in the morning, and I made my exit with the rest, 
thanking Heaven, that, though in a strange country, my mother- 
tongue was the language of its men of genius. 



LETTER LXX. 

LONDON VISIT TO A RACE-COURSE GIPSIES THE PRINCESS 

VICTORIA SPLENDID APPEARANCE OF THE ENGLISH NOBILITY 

A BREAKFAST WITH ELIA AND BRIDGET ELIA MYSTIFICA- 

TI0N CHARLES LAMB'S OPINION OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

I have just returned from Ascot races. Aseot Heath, on 
which the course is laid out, is a high platform of land, beauti- 
fully situated on a hill above Windsor Castle, about twenty-five 
miles from London. I went down with a party of gentlemen in 
the morning and returned at evening, doing the distance, with 
relays of horses in something less than three hours. This, one 
would think, is very fair speed, but we were passed continually 
by the " bloods" of the road, in comparison with whom we 
seemed getting on rather at a snail's pace. 

The scenery on the way was truly English — one series of 
finished landscapes, of every variety of combination. Lawns, 
fancy-cottages, manor-houses, groves, roses and flower-gardens, 
make up England. It surfeits the eye at last. You could not 
drop a poet out of the clouds upon any part of it I have seen, 
where, within five minutes' walk, he would not find himself in 
Paradise. 



4S4 ASCOT RACES. 



We flew past Virginia Water and through the sun-flecked 
shades of Windsor Park, with the speed of the wind. On 
reaching the Heath, we dashed out of the road, and cutting 
through fern and brier, our experienced whip put his wheels on 
the rim of the course, as near the stands as some thousands of 
carriages arrived before us would permit, and then, cautioning us 
to take the bearings of our position, lest we should lose him after 
the race, he took off his horses, and left us to choose our own 
places. 

A thousand red and yellow flags were flying from as many 
snowy tents in the midst of the green heath ; ballad-singers and 
bands of music were amusing their little audiences in every 
direction ; splendid markees covering gambling-tables, surrounded 
the winning-post ; groups of country people were busy in every 
bush, eating and singing, and the great stands were piled with 
row upon row of human heads waiting anxiously for the exhilarat- 
ing contest. 

Soon after we arrived, the King and royal family drove up the 
course with twenty carriages, and scores of postillions and out- 
riders in red and gold, flying over the turf as majesty flies in no 
other country ; and, immediately after, the bell rang to clear the 
course for the race. Suck horses ! The earth seemed to fling 
them off as they touched it. The lean jockeys, in their party- 
colored caps and jackets, rode the fine-limbed, slender creatures 
up and down together, and then returning to the starting-post, off 
they shot like so many arrows from the bow. 

Whiz ! you could tell neither color nor shape as they passed 
across the eye. Their swiftness was incredible. A horse of Lord 
Chesterfield's was rather the favorite ; and for the sake of his great- 
grandfather, I had backed him with my small wager, " Glaucus is 



HAJNDSOME MEN. 485 



losing," said some one on the top of a carriage above me, but 
round they swept again, and 1 could just see that one glorious 
creature was doubling the leaps of every other horse, and in a 
moment Grlaucus and Lord Chesterfield had won. 

The course between the races is a promenade of some 
thousands of the best-dressed people in England. I thought I had 
never seen so many handsome men and women, but particularly 
men. The nobility of this country, unlike every other, is by far 
the manliest and finest looking class of its population. The 
contadini of Kome, the lazzaroni of Naples, the pay sans of 
France, are incomparably more handsome than their superiors in 
rank, but it is strikingly different here. A set of more elegant 
and well-proportioned men than those pointed out to me by my 
friends as the noblemen on the course, I never saw, except only 
in Greece. The Albanians are seraphs to look at. 

Excitement is hungry, and, after the first race, our party pro- 
duced their baskets and bottles, and spreading out the cold pie 
and champaign upon the grass, between the wheels of the 
carriages, we drank Lord Chesterfield's health and ate for our 
own, in an alfresco style worthy of Italy. Two veritable Bohe- 
mians, brown, black-eyed gipsies, the models of those I had seen 
in their wicker tents in Asia, profited by the liberality of the 
hour, and came in for an upper crust to a pigeon pie, that, to tell 
the truth, they seemed to appreciate. 

Race followed race, but I am not a contributor to the Sporting 
Magazine, and could not give you their merits in comprehensible 
terms if I were- 

In one of the intervals, I walked under the King's stand, and 
saw Her Majesty, the Queen, and the young Princess Victoria, 
very distinctly. They were listening to a ballad-singer., and 



486 THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. 



leaning over the front of the box with an amused attention, quite 
as sincere, apparently, as any beggar's in the ring. The Queen 
is the plainest woman in her dominions, beyond a doubt. The 
Princess is much better-looking than the pictures of her in the 
shops, and, for the heir to such a crown as that of England, 
quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting. She will be sold, 
poor thing — bartered away by those great dealers in royal hearts, 
whose grand calculations will not be much consolation to her, if 
she happens to have a taste of her own. 

[The following sketch was written a short time previous to the 
death of Charles Lamb.] 

Invited to breakfast with a gentleman in the temple to meet 
Charles Lamb and his sister — " Elia and Bridget Elia." I never 
in my life had an invitation more to my taste. The essays of 
Elia are certainly the most charming things in the world, 
and it has been for the last ten years, my highest compliment 
to the literary taste of a friend to present him with a copy. 
"Who has not smiled over the humorous description of Mrs. 
Battle ? Who that has read Elia would not give more to see 
him than all the other authors of his time put together ? 

Our host was rather a character. I had brought a letter of 
introduction to him from Walter Savage Landor, the author of 
Imaginary Conversations, living at Florence, with a request that 
he would put me in the way of seeing one or two men about whom 
I had a curiosity, Lamb more particularly. I could not have 
been recommended to a better person. Mr. B. is a gentleman 
who, everybody says, should have been an author, but who never 
wrote a book. He is a profound German scholar, has travelled 



CHARLES LAMB. 487 



much, is the intimate friend of Southey, Coleridge, and Lamb, 
has breakfasted with Goethe, tVa veiled with Wordsworth through 
France and Italy, and spends part of every summer with him, 
and knows everything and everybody that is distinguished — in 
short, is, in his bachelor's chambers in the temple, the friendly 
nucleus of a great part of the talent of England. 

I arrived a half hour before Lamb, and had time to learn 
some of his peculiarities. He lives a little out of London, and 
is very much of an invalid. Some family circumstances have 
tended to depress him very much of late years, and unless excited 
by convivial intercourse, he scarce shows a trace of what he was. 
He was very much pleased with the American reprint of his 
Elia, though it contains several things which are not his — written 
so in his style ; however, that it is scarce a wonder the editor 
should mistake them. If I remember right, they were " Valen- 
tine's Day," the "Nuns of Caverswell," and " Twelfth Night." 
He is excessively given to mystifying his friends, and is never so 
delighted as when he has persuaded some one into the belief of 
one of his grave inventions. His amusing biographical sketch of 
Liston was in this vein, and there was no doubt in anybody's 
mind that it was authentic, and written in perfectly good faith. 
Liston was highly enraged with it, and Lamb was delighted in 
proportion. 

There was a rap at the door at last, and enter a gentleman in 
black small-clothes and gaiters, short and very slight in his 
person, his head set on his shoulders with a thoughtful, forward 
bent, his hair just sprinkled with gray, a beautiful, deep-set eye, 
aquiline nose, and a very indescribable mouth. Whether it 
expressed most humor or feeling, good nature or a kind of whim- 



488 MARY LAMB. 



sical peevishness, or twenty other things which passed over it by 
turns, I can not in the least be certain. 

His sister, whose literary reputation is associated very closely 
with her brother's, and who, as the original of " Bridget Elia," 
is a kind of object for literary affection, came in after him. She 
is a small, bent figure, evidently a victim to illness, and hears 
with difficulty. Her face has been, I should think, a fine and 
handsome one, and her bright gray eye is still full of intelligence 
and fire. They both seemed quite at home in our friend's cham- 
bers, and as there was to be no one else, we immediately drew 
round the breakfast table. I had set a large arm chair for Miss 
Lamb. " Don't take it, Mary," said Lamb, pulling it away from 
her very gravely, " it appears as if you were going to have a tooth 
drawn." 

The conversation was very local. Our host and his guest had 
not met for some weeks, and they had a great deal to say of 
their mutual friends. Perhaps in this way, however, I saw more 
of the author, for his manner of speaking of them and the quaint 
humor with which he complained of one, and spoke well of 
another was so in the vein of his inimitable writings, that I could 
have fancied myself listening to an audible composition of a new 
Elia. Nothing could be more delightful than the kindness and 
affection between the brother and the sister, though Lamb was 
continually taking advantage of her deafness to mystify her with 
the most singular gravity upon every topic that was started. 
" Poor Mary!" said he, " she hears all of an epigram but the 
point." " What are you saying of me, Charles ?" she asked. 
" Mr. Willis," said he, raising his voice, " admires your Confes- 
sions of a Drunkard very much, and I was saying that it was no 
merit of yours, that you understood the subject." We had been 



LAMB'S CONVERSATION. 489 



speaking of this admirable essay (which is his own), half an hour 
before. 

The conversation turned upon literature after a while, and our 
host, the templar, could not express himself strongly enough in 
admiration of Webster's speeches, which he said were exciting 
the greatest attention among the politicians and lawyers of Eng- 
land. Lamb said, " I don't know much of American authors. 
Mary, there, devours Cooper's novels with a ravenous appetite, 
with which 1 have no sympathy. The only American book T 
ever read twice, was the ' Journal of Edward Woolman,' a 
quaker preacher and tailor, whose character is one of the finest 
I ever met with. He tells a story or two about negro slaves that 
brought the tears into my eyes. I can read no prose now, though 
Hazlitt sometimes, to be sure — but then Hazlitt is worth all 
modern prose writers put together." 

Mr. R. spoke of buying a book of Lamb's, a few days before, 
and I mentioned my having bought a copy of Elia the last day I 
was in America, to send as a parting gift to one of the most 
lovely and talented women in our country. 

" What did you give for it ?" said Lamb. 

" About seven and sixpence." 

" Permit me to pay you that," said he, and with the utmost 
earnestness he counted out the money upon the table. 

" I never yet wrote anything that would sell," he continued. 
" I am the publisher's ruin. My last poem won't sell a copy. 
Have you seen it, Mr. Willis ?" 

I had not. 

" It's only eighteen pence, and I'll give you sixpence toward 

it ;" and he described to me where I should find it sticking up in 

a shop-window in the Strand. 
21* 



490 THE BREAKFAST AT FAULT. 



Lamb ate nothing, and complained in a querulous tone of the 
veal pie. There was a kind of potted fish (of which I forget the 
name at this moment), which he had expected our friend would 
procure for him. He inquired whether there was not a morsel 
left perhaps in the bottom of the last pot. Mr. R. was not sure. 

" Send and see," said Lamb, " and if the pot has been 
cleaned, bring me the cover. I think the sight of it would do 
me good." 

The cover was brought, upon which there was a picture of the 
fish. Lamb kissed it with a reproachful look at his friend, and 
then left the table and began to wander round the room with a 
broken, uncertain step, as if he almost forgot to put one leg 
before the other. His sister rose after a while, and commenced 
walking up and down, very much in the same manner, on the 
opposite side of the table, and in the course of half an hour they 
took their leave. 

To any one who loves the writings of Charles Lamb with but 
half my own enthusiasm, even these little particulars of an hour 
passed in his company, will have an interest. To him who does 
not, they will seem dull and idle. Wreck as he certainly is, and 
must be, however, of what he was, I would rather have seen him 
for that single hour, than the hundred and one sights of London 
put together. 



LETTER LXXI. 

DINNER AT LADY BLESSINGTOn's BULWER, D'lSRAELI, PROCTER, 

FONBLANC, ETC. ECCENTRICITIES OF BECKFORD, AUTHOR OF 

VATHEK D'iSRAELl's EXTRAORDINARY TALENT AT DESCRIPTION. 

Dined at Lady Blessington's, in company with several authors, 
three or four noblemen, and a clever exquisite or two. The 
authors were Bulwer, the novelist, and his brother, the statist ; 
Procter (better known as Barry Cornwall), D 'Israeli, the author 
of Vivian Grey ; and Fonblanc, of the Examiner. The principal 
nobleman was Lord Durham, and the principal exquisite (though 
the word scarce applies to the magnificent scale on which nature 
has made him, and on which he makes himself), was Count 
D'Orsay. There were plates for twelve. 

I had never seen Procter, and, with my passionate love for his 
poetry, he was the person at table of the most interest to me. 
He came late, and as twilight was just darkening the drawing- 
room, I could only see that a small man followed the announce- 
ment, with a remarkably timid manner, and a very white forehead. 

D'Israeli had arrived before me, and sat in the deep window, 
looking out upon Hyde Park, with the last rays of daylight 
reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroid- 



492 A DINNER AT LADY BLESSINGTON'S. 



ered waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white # stick, with a 
black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck 
and pockets, served to make him, even in the dim light, rather a 
conspicuous object. 

Bulwer was very badly dressed, as usual, and wore a flashy 
waistcoat of the same description as D'Israeli's. Count D'Orsay 
was very splendid, but very undefinable. He seemed showily 
dressed till you looked to particulars, and then it seemed only a 
simple thing, well fitted to a very magnificent person. Lord 
Albert Conyngham was a dandy of common materials ; and my 
Lord Durham, though he looked a young man, if he passed for a 
lord at all in America, would pass for a very ill-dressed one. 

For Lady Blessington, she is one of the most handsome, and, 
quite the best-dressed woman in London ; and, without farther 
description, I trust the readers of the Mirror will have little 
difficulty in imagining a scene that, taking a wild American into 
the account, was made up of rather various material. 

The blaze of lamps on the dinner table was very favorable to 
my curiosity, and as Procter and D 'Israeli sat directly opposite 
me, I studied their faces to advantage. Barry Cornwall's fore- 
head and eye are all that would strike you in his features. His 
brows are heavy ; and his eye, deeply sunk, has a quick, restless 
fire, that would have arrested my attention, I think, had I not 
known he was a poet. His voice has the huskiness and elevation 
of a man more accustomed to think than converse, and it was 
never heard except to give a brief and very condensed opinion, 
or an illustration, admirably to the point, of the subject under 
discussion. He evidently felt that he was only an observer in the 
party. 

D 'Israeli has one of the most remarkable faces 1 ever saw. 



D'ISRAELI— THE YOUNGER. 493 



He is lividly pale, and but for the energy of his action and the 
strength of his lungs, would seem a victim to consumption. His 
eye is black as Erebus, and has the most mocking and lying- 
in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with 
a kind of working and impatient nervousness, and when he has 
burst forth, as he does constantly, with a particularly successful 
cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that 
would be worthy of a Mephistopheles. His hair is as extraordi- 
nary as his taste in waistcoats. A thick heavy mass of jet black 
ringlets falls over his left cheek almost to his collarless stock, 
while on the right temple it is parted and put away with the 
smooth carefulness of a girl's, and shines most unctiously, 

" With thy incomparable oil, Macassar !" 

The anxieties of the first course, as usual, kept every mouth 
occupied for a while, and then the dandies led off with a discus- 
sion of Count D'Orsay's rifle match (he is the best rifle-shot in 
England), and various matters as uninteresting to transatlantic 
readers. The new poem, Philip Van Artevald's, came up after a 
while, and was very much over-praised (me judice). Bulwer 
said, that as the author was the principle writer for the Quarterly 
Review, it was a pity it was first praised in that periodical, and 
praised so unqualifiedly. Procter said nothing about it, and I 
respected his silence ; for, as a poet, he must have felt the 
poverty of the poem, and was probably unwilling to attack a new 
aspirant in his laurels. 

The next book discussed was Beckford's Italy, or rather the 
next author, for the writer of Vathek is more original, and more 
talked of than his books, and just now occupies much of the 
attention of London. Mr. Beckford has been all his life enor- 



494 THE AUTHOR OF VATHEK. 



niously rich, has luxuriated in every country with the fancy of a 
poet, and the refined splendor of a Sybarite, was the admiration 
of Lord Byron, who visited him at Cintra, was the owner of 
Fon thill, and, plus fort encore, his is one of the oldest families in 
England. What could such a man attempt that would not be 
considered extraordinary ! 

D 'Israeli was the only one at table who knew him, and the 
style in which he gave a sketch of his habits and manners, was 
worthy of himself. I might as well attempt to gather up the 
foam of the sea, as to convey an idea of the extraordinary lan- 
guage in which he clothed his description. There were, at 
least, five words in every sentence that must have been very 
much astonished at the use they were put to, and yet no others 
apparently, could so well have conveyed his idea. He talked 
like a race-horse approaching the winning-post, every muscle in 
action, and the utmost energy of expression flung out in every 
burst. It is a great pity he is not in parliament.* 

The particulars he gave of Beckford, though stripped of his 
gorgeous digressions and parentheses, may be interesting. He 
lives now at Bath, where he has built a house on two sides of the 
street, connected by a covered bridge a la Ponte de Sospiri, at 
Venice. His servants live on one side, and he and his sole com- 
panion on the other. This companion is a hideous dwarf, who 
imagines himself, or is, a Spanish duke ; and Mr. Beckford for 
many years has supported him in a style befitting his rank, treats 
him with all the deference due to his title, and has, in general, 

* I have been told that he stood once for a London borough. A coarse 
fellow came up at the hustings, and said to him, " I should like to know on 
what ground you stand here, sir ?" " On my head, sir !" answered D'Israeli. 
The populace had not read Vivian Grey, however, and he lost his election. 



MR. BECKFORD'S WHIMS. 495 



no other society (I should not wonder, myself, if it turned out to 
be a woman) ; neither of them is often seen, and when in London, 
Mr. Beckford is only to be approached through his man of busi- 
ness. If you call, he is not at home. If you would leave a 
card or address him a note, his servant has strict orders not to 
take in anything of the kind. At Bath, he has built a high 
tower, which is a great mystery to the inhabitants. Around the 
interior, to the very top, it is lined with books, approachable 
with a light spiral staircase ; and in the pavement below, the 
owner has constructed a double crypt for his own body, and that 
of his dwarf companion, intending, with a desire for human 
neighborhood which has not appeared in his life, to leave the 
library to the city, that all who enjoy it shall pass over the bodies 
below. 

Mr. Beckford thinks very highly of his own books, and talks 
of his early production (Vathek), in terms of unbounded admira- 
tion. He speaks slightingly of Byron, and of his praise, and 
affects to despise utterly the popular taste. It appeared alto- 
gether, from D 'Israeli's account, that he is a splendid egotist, 
determined to free life as much as possible from its usual fetters, 
and to enjoy it to the highest degree of which his genius, backed 
by an immense fortune, is capable. He is reputed, however, to 
be excessively liberal, and to exercise his ingenuity to contrive 
secret charities in his neighborhood. 

Victor Hugo and his extraordinary novels came next under 
dissussion ; and D 'Israeli, who was fired with his own eloquence, 
started off, apropos des bottes, with a long story of an empale- 
ment he had seen in Upper Egypt. It was as good, and perhaps 
as authentic, as the description of the chow-chow-tow in Vivian 
Grey. He had arrived at Cairo on the third day after the man 



498 IRISH PATRIOTISM. 



was transfixed by two stakes from hip to shoulder, and he was 
still alive! The circumstantiality of the account was equally 
horrible and amusing. Then followed the sufferer's history, with 
a score of murders and barbarities, heaped together like Martin's 
Feast of Belshazzer, with a mixture of horror and splendor, that 
was unparalleled in my experience of improvisation. No mystic 
priest of the Corybantes could have worked himself up into a 
finer phrensy of language. 

Count D'Orsay kept up, through the whole of the conversation 
and narration, a running fire of witty parentheses, half French 
and half English ; and with champaign in all the pauses, the 
hours flew on very dashingly. Lady Blessington left us toward 
midnight, and then the conversation took^a rather political turn, 
and something was said of O'Connell. D'Israeli's lips were 
playing upon the edge of a champaign glass, which he had just 
drained, and off he shot again with a description of an interview 
he had had with the agitator the day before, ending in a story of 
an Irish dragoon who was killed in the peninsula. His name was 
Sarsfield. His arm was shot off, and he was bleeding to death. 
When told that he could not live, he called for a large silver 
goblet, out of which he usually drank his claret. He held it to 
the gushing artery and filled it to the brim with blood, looked at 
it a moment, turned it out slowly upon the ground, muttering to 
himself, " If that had been shed for old Ireland !" and expired. 
You can have no idea how thrillingly this little story was told. 
Fonblanc, however, who is a cold political satirist, could see 
nothing in a man's " decanting his claret," that was in the least 
sublime, and so Vivian Grey got into a passion, and for a while 
was silent. 

Bulwer asked me if there was any distinguished literary Amer- 



THE EFFECT OF ELOQUENCE. 497 



ican in town. I said, Mr. Slidell one of our best writers, was 
here. 

" Because," said he, " I received, a week or more ago, a letter 
of introduction by some one from Washington Irving. It lay on 
the table, when a lady came in to call on my wife, who seized 
upon it as an autograph, and immediately left town, leaving me 
with neither name nor address. 

There was a general laugh and a cry of " Pelham ! Pelham !" 
as he finished his story. Nobody chose to believe it. 

" I think the name was Slidell," said Bulwer. 

" Slidell !" said D'Israeii, " I owe him two-pence, by Jove !" 
and he went on in his dashing way to narrate that he had sat 
next Mr. Slidell at a bull-fight in Seville, that he wanted to buy 
a fan to keep off the flies, and having nothing but doubloons in 
his pocket, Mr. S. had lent him a small Spanish coin to that 
value, which he owed him to this day. 

There was another general laugh, and it was agreed that on 
the whole the Americans were w done." 

Apropos to this, D'Israeli gave us a description in a gorgeous, 
burlesque, galloping style, of a Spanish bull-fight ; and when we 
were nearly dead with laughing at it, some one made a move, and 
we went up to Lady Blessington in the drawing-room. Lord 
Durham requested her ladyship to introduce him, particularly, to 
D'Israeli (the effect of his eloquence). I sat down in the corner 
with Sir Martin Shee, the president of the Royal Academy, and 
had a long talk about Allston and Harding and Cole, whose pic- 
tures he knew ; and " somewhere in the small hours," we took 
our leave, and Procter left me at my door in Cavendish street 
weary, but in a better humor with the world than usual. 



LETTER LXXII. 

THE ITALIAN OPERA MADEMOISELLE GRISI A GLANCE AT LORD 

BROUGHAM MRS. NORTON AND LORD SEFTON RAND, THE AMER 

ICAN PORTRAIT PAINTER AN EVENING PARTY AT BULWER's 

PALMY STATE OF LITERATURE IN MODERN DAYS FASHIONABLE 

NEGLECT OF FEMALES PERSONAGES PRESENT SHIEL THE ORA- 
TOR, THE PRINCE OF MOSCOWA, MRS. LEICESTER STANHOPE, THE 
CELEBRATED BEAUTY, ETC., ETC. 

Went to the opera to hear Julia Grisi. I stood out the first 
act in the pit, and saw instances of rudeness in " Fop's-alley," 
which I had never seen approached in three years on the conti- 
nent. The high price of tickets, one would think, and the 
necessity of appearing in full dress, would keep the opera clear 
of low-bred people ; but the conduct to which I refer seemed to 
excite no surprise and passed off without notice, though, in 
America, there would have been ample matter for at least, four 
duels. 

G-risi is young, very pretty, and an admirable actress— three 
great advantages to a singer. Her voice is under absolute com- 
mand, and she manages it beautifully, but it wants the infusion of 



THE OPERA HOUSE. 499 



Malibran. You merely feel that G-risi is an accomplished artist, 
while Malibran melts all your criticism into love and admiration. 
I am easily moved by music, but I came away without much 
enthusiasm for the present passion of London. 

The opera-house is very different from those on the continent. 
The stage only is lighted abroad, the single lustre from the ceiling 
just throwing, that clair obscure over the boxes, so favorable to 
Italian complexions and morals. Here, the dress circles are 
lighted with bright chandeliers, and the whole house sits in such 
a blaze of light as leaves no approach even, to a lady, unseen. 
The consequence is that people here dress much more, and the 
opera, if less interesting to the habitue, is a gayer thing to the 
many. 

I went up to Lady Blessington's box for a moment, and found 
Strangways, the traveller, and several other distinguished men 
with her. Her ladyship pointed out to me Lord Brougham, flirt- 
ing desperately with a pretty woman on the opposite side of the 
house, his mouth going with the convulsive twitch which so dis- 
figures him, and his most unsightly of pug-noses in the strongest 
relief against the red lining behind. There never was a plainer 
man. The Honorable Mrs. Norton, Sheridan's daughter, and 
poetess, sat nearer to us, looking like a queen, certainly one of 
the most beautiful women I ever looked upon ; and the gastro- 
nomic and humpbacked Lord Sefton, said to be the best judge of 
cookery in the world, sat in the " dandy's omnibus," a large box 
on a level with the stage, leaning forward with his chin on his 
knuckles, and waiting with evident impatience for the appearance 
of Fanny Elssler in the ballet. Beauty and all, the English 
opera-house surpasses anything I have seen in the way of a 
spectacle. 



500 WHAT BOOKS WILL PAY FOR. 



An evening party at Bulwer's. Not yet perfectly initiated in 
London hours, I arrived, not far from eleven, and found Mrs. 
Bulwer alone in her illuminated rooms, whiling away an expectant 
hour in playing with a King Charles spaniel, that seemed by his 
fondness and delight to appreciate the excessive loveliness of his 
mistress. As far off as America, I may express, even in print, 
an admiration which is no heresy in London. 

The author of Pelham is a younger son and depends on his 
writings for a livelihood, and truly, measuring works of fancy by 
what they will bring, (not an unfair standard perhaps), a glance 
around his luxurious and elegant rooms is worth reams of puff in 
the quarterlies. He lives in the heart of the fashionable quarter 
Df London, where rents are ruinously extravagant, entertains a 
^reat deal, and is expensive in all his habits, and for this pay 
Messrs. Clifford, Pelham, and Aram — (it would seem), most 
excellent good bankers. As I looked at the beautiful woman 
seated on the costly ottoman before me, waiting to receive the 
rank and fashion of London, I thought that old close-fisted 
literature never had better reason for his partial largess. I half 
forgave the miser for starving a wilderness of poets. 

One of the first persons who came was Lord Byron's sister, a 
thin, plain, middle-aged woman, of a very serious countenance, and 
with very cordial and pleasing manners. The rooms soon filled, 
and two professed singers went industriously to work in their 
vocation at the piano ; but, except one pale man, with staring 
hair, whom I took to be a poet, nobody pretended to listen. 

Every second woman has some strong claim to beauty in 
England, and the proportion of those who just miss it, by a hair's 
breadth as it were — who seem really to have been meant for 
beauties by nature, but by a slip in the moulding or pencilling 



ENGLISH BEAUTY. 501 



are imperfect copies of the design — is really extraordinary. One 
after another entered, as I stood near the door with my old 
friend Dr. Bowring for a nomenclator, and the word " lovely" or 
" charming," had not passed my lips before some change in the 
attitude, or unguarded animation had exposed the flaw, and the 
hasty homage (for homage it is, and an idolatrous one, that we 
pay to the beauty of woman), was coldly and unsparingly retract- 
ed. From a goddess upon earth to a slighted and unattractive 
trap for matrimony is a long step, but taken on so slight a defect 
sometimes, as, were they marble, a sculptor would etcli away with 
his nail. 

I was surprised (and I have been struck with the same thing 
at several parties I have attended in London), at the neglect with 
which the female part of the assemblage is treated. No young 
man ever seems to dream of speaking to a lady, except to ask her 
to dance. There they sit with their mamas, their hands hung over 
each other before them in the received attitude ; and if there 
happens to be no dancing (as at Bulwer's), looking at a print, or 
eating an ice, is for them the most enlivening circumstance of the 
evening. As well as I recollect, it is better managed in Amer- 
ica, and certainly society is quite another thing in France and 
Italy. Late in the evening a charming girl, who is the reigning 
belle of Naples, came in with her mother from the opera, and I 
made the remark to her. " I detest England for that very 
reason," she said frankly. " It is the fashion in London for the 
young men to prefer everything to the society of women. They 
have their clubs, their horses, their rowing matches, their hunting 
and betting, and everything else is a bore ! How different are 
the same men at Naples ! They can never get enough of one 
there .' We are surrounded and run after, 



502 A BELLE'S CRITICISM ON SOCIETY. 



" ' Our poodle dog is quite adored, 
Our sayings are extremely quoted," 

and really, one feels that one is a belle. " She mentioned several 
of the beaux of last winter who had returned to England. " Here 
I have been in London a month, and these very men that were 
dying for me, at my side every day on the Strada Nuova^ and 
all but fighting to dance three times with me of an evening, have 
only left their cards ! Not because they care less about me, but 
because it is ' not the fashion' — it would be talked of at the club, 
it is ' knowing' to let us alone." 

There were only three men in the party, which was a very 
crowded one, who could come under the head of beaux. Of the 
remaining part, there was much that was distinguished, both for 
rank and talent. Sheil, the Irish orator, a small, dark, deceitful, 
but talented-looking man, with a very disagreeable squeaking 
voice, stood in a corner, very earnestly engaged in conversation 
with the aristocratic old Earl of Clarendon. The contrast be- 
tween the styles of the two men, the courtly and mild elegance 
of one, and the uneasy and half-bred, but shrewd earnestness of 
the other, was quite a study. Fonblanc of the Examiner, with 
his pale and dislocated-looking face, stood in the door-way 
between the two rooms, making the amiable with a ghastly 
smile to Lady Stepney. The ( bilious Lord Durham,' as the 
papers call him, with his Brutus head, and grave, severe coun- 
tenance, high-bred in his appearance, despite the worst possible 
coat and trowsers, stood at the pedestal of a beautiful statue, 
talking politics with Bowring ; and near them, leaned over a 
chair the Prince Moscowa, the son of Marshal Ney, a plain, but 
determined-looking young man, with his coat buttoned up to his 



CELEBRITIES. 



503 



throat, unconscious of everything but the presence of the Honor- 
able Mrs. Leicester Stanhope, a very lovely woman, who was 
enlightening him in the prettiest English French, upon some 
point of national differences. Her husband, famous as Lord 
Byron's companion in Greece, and a great liberal in England, 
was introduced to me soon after by Bulwer ; and we discussed 
the Bank and the President, with a little assistance from Bow- 
ring, who joined us with a paean for the old general and his 
measures, till it was far into the morning. 



LETTER LXXII1. 

BREAKFAST WITH BARRY CORNWALL LUXURY OF THE FOLLOW- 
ERS OF THE MODERN MUSE BEAUTY OF THE DRAMATIC 

SKETCHES GAINS PROCTOR A WIFE HAZLITT's EXTRAOR- 
DINARY TASTE FOR THE PICTURESQUE IN WOMEN COLE- 

RIDGE'S OPINION OF CORNWALL. 

Breakfasted with Mr. Procter (known better as Barry 
Cornwall). I gave a partial description of this most delightful 
of poets in a former letter. In the dazzling circle of rank and 
talent with which he was surrounded at Lady Blessington's, how- 
ever, it was difficult to see so shrinkingiy modest a man to 
advantage, and with the exception of the keen gray eye, living 
with thought and feeling, I should hardly have recognised him, at 
home, for the same person. 

Mr. Procter is a barrister ; and his " whereabout" is more 
like that of a lord chancellor than a poet proper. With the 
address he had given me at parting, I drove to a large house in 
Bedford square ; and, not accustomed to find the children of the 
Muses waited on by servants in livery, I made up my mind as I 
walked up the broad staircase, that I was blundering upon some 
Mr. Procter of the exchange, whose respect for his poetical 



BREAKFAST WITH PROCTER. 505 



namesake, I hoped would smooth my apology for the intrusion. 
Buried in a deep morocco chair, in a large library, notwithstand- 
ing, I found the poet himself — choice old pictures, filling every 
nook between the book-shelves, tables covered with novels and 
annuals, rolls of prints, busts and drawings in all corners ; and, 
more important for the nonce, a breakfast table at the poet's 
elbow, spicily set forth, not with flowers or ambrosia, the canon- 
ical food of rhymers, but with cold ham and ducks, hot rolls and 
butter, coffee-pot and tea-urn — as sensible a breakfast, in short, 
as the most unpoetical of men could desire. 

Procter is indebted to his poetry for a very charming wife, the 
daughter of Basil Montague, well known as a collector of choice 
literature, and the friend and patron of literary men. The 
exquisite beauty of the Dramatic Sketches interested this lovely 
woman in his favor before she knew him, and, far from worldly- 
wise as an attachment so grounded would seem, I never saw two 
people with a more habitual air of happiness. I thought of his 
touching song, 

" How many summers, love, 
Hast thou been mine ?" 

and looked at them with an inexpressible feeling of envy. A 
beautiful girl, of eight or nine years, the " golden-tressed Ade- 
laide," delicate, gentle and pensive, as if she was born on the lip 
of Castaly, and knew she was a poet's child, completed the picture 
of happiness. 

The conversation ran upon various authors, whom Procter had 
known intimately — Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Keats, Shelley, and 
others, and of all he gave me interesting particulars, which I 
22 



506 A STORY OF HAZLITT. 



could not well repeat in a public letter. The account of Hazlitt's 
death -bed, which appeared in one of the magazines, he said was 
wholly untrue. This extraordinary writer was the most reckless 
of men in money matters, but he had a host of admiring friends 
who knew his character, and were always ready to assist him. 
He was a great admirer of the picturesque in women. He was 
one evening at the theatre with Procter, and pointed out to him 
an Amazonian female, strangely dressed in black velvet and lace, 
but with no beajjty that would please an ordinary eye. " Look 
at her !" said Hazlitt, " isn't she fine! — isn't she magnificent? 
Did you ever see anything more Titianesque ?"* 

After breakfast, Procter took me into a small closet adjoining 
his library, in which he usually writes. There was just room 
enough in it for a desk and two chairs, and around were piled in 
true poetical confusion, his favorite books, miniature likenesses 
of authors, manuscripts, and all the interesting lumber of a true 
poet's corner. From a drawer, very much thrust out of the way, 
he drew a volume of his own, into which he proceeded to write 
my name — a collection of songs, published since I have been in 
Europe, which I had never seen. I seized upon a worn copy of 
the Dramatic Sketches, which 1 found crossed and interlined in 
every direction. " Don't look at them," said Procter, " they are 
wretched things, which should never have been printed, or at least 

* The following story has been told me by another gentleman. Hazlitt ' 
was married to an amiable woman, and divorced after a few years, at his 
own request. He left London, and returned with another wife. The first 
thing he did, was to send to his first wife to borrow five pounds ! She had 
not so much in the world, but she sent to a friend (the gentleman who told 
me the story) , borrowed it, and sent it to him ! It seems to me there is a 
whole drama in this single fact. 



PROCTER AS A POET. 507 

with a world of correction. You see how I have mended them ; 
and, some day, perhaps, I will publish a corrected edition, since 
I can not get them back." He took the book from my hand, and 
opened to " The Broken Heart," certainly the most highly- 
finished and exquisite piece of pathos in the language, and read 
it to me with his alterations. It was to " gild refined gold, and 
paint the lily." I would recommend to the lovers of Barry 
Cornwall, to keep their original copy, beautifully as he has 
polished his lines anew. 

On a blank leaf of the same copy of the Dramatic Sketches, I 
found some indistinct writing in pencil. " Oh ! don't read that," 
said Procter, u the book was given me some years ago, by a friend 
at whose house Coleridge had been staying, for the sake of the 
criticisms that great man did me the honor to write at the end." 
I insisted on reading them, however, and his wife calling him out 
presently, I succeeded in copying them in his absence. He 
seemed a little annoyed, but on my promising to make no use of 
them in England, he allowed me to retain them. They are as 
follows : 

" Barry Cornwall is a poet, me saltern judice, and in that sense of the word, 
in which I apply it to Charles Lamb and W. Wordsworth. There are 
poems of great merit, the authors of which, I should not yet feel impelled 
so to designate. 

" The faults of these poems are no less things of hope than the beauties. 
Both are just what they ought to be : i. e. now. 

" If B. C. be faithful to his genius, it in due time will warn him that as 
poetry is the identity of all other knowledge, so a poet can not be a great 
poet, but as being likewise and inclusively an historian and a naturalist in 
the light as well as the life of philosophy. All other men's worlds are his 
chaos. 



50S IMPRESSIONS OF THE MAN. 

" Hints— Not to permit delicacy and exquisiteness to seduce into effemi- 
nacy. 

" Not to permit beauties by repetition to become mannerism. 

" To be jealous of fragmentary composition as epicurism of genius— apple- 
pie made all of quinces. 

a Item. That dramatic poetry must be poetry hid in thought and passion, 
not thought or passion hid in the dregs of poetry. 

'' Lastly, to be economic and withholding in similes, figures, etc. They 
will all find their place sooner or later, each in the luminary of a sphere of 
its own. There can be no galaxy in poetry, because it is language, ergo, suc- 
cessive, ergo every the smallest star must be seen singly. 

" There are not five metrists in the kingdom whose works are known by 
me, to whom I could have held myself allowed to speak so plainly ; but B. 
C. is a man of genius, and it depends on himself {competence protecting him 
from gnawing and distracting cares) , to become a rightful poet— i. e. a great 
man. 

" Oh, for such a man ; worldly prudence is transfigured into the high spir- 
itual duty. How generous is self-interest in him, whose true self is all that 
is good and hopeful in all ages as far as the language of Spenser, Shakspeare, 
and Milton, is the mother tongue. 

" A map of the road to Paradise, drawn in Purgatory on the confines of 
Hell, by S. T. C. July 30, 1819." 

I took my leave of this true poet after half a day passed in 
his company, with the impression that he makes upon every one 
— of a man whose sincerity and kind-heartedness were the 
most prominent traits in his character. Simple in his language 
and feelings, a fond father, an affectionate husband, a business- 
man of the closest habits of industry — one reads his strange 
imaginations, and passionate, high-wrought, and even sublimated 
poetry, and is in doubt at which most to wonder — the man as he 
is, or the poet as we know him in his books. 



LETTER LXXIV. 

AN EVENING AT LADY BLESSINGTON's ANECDOTES OP MOORE, 

THE POET TAYLOR, THE PLATONIST POLITICS ELECTION OP 

SPEAKER PRICES OF BOOKS. 

I am obliged to " gazette" Lady Blessington rather more than 
I should wish, and more than may seem delicate to those, who do 
not know the central position she occupies in the circle of talent 
in London. Her soirees and dinner-parties, however, are literally 
the single and only assemblages of men of genius, without refe- 
rence to party — the only attempt at a republic of letters in the 
world of this great, envious, and gifted metropolis. The pictures 
of literary life, in which my countrymen would be most inte- 
rested, therefore, are found within a very small compass, pre- 
suming them to prefer the brighter side of an eminent character, 
and presuming them (is it a presumption ?), not to possess that 
appetite for degrading the author to the man, by an anatomy of 
his secret personal failings, which is lamentably common in Eng- 
land. Having premised thus much, I go on with my letter. 

I drove to Lady Blessington's an evening or two since, with 
the usual certainty of finding her at home, as there was no opera, 
and the equal certainty of finding a circle of agreeable and emi- 



510 MOORE'S DREAD OF CRITICISM. 



nent men about her. She met me with the information that 
Moore was in town, and an invitation to dine with her whenever 
she should be able to prevail upon " the little Bacchus" to give 
her a day. D'Israeli, the younger, was there, and Dr. Beattie, 
the king's physician (and author, unacknowledged, of " The 
Heliotrope"), and one or two fashionable young noblemen. 

Moore was naturally the first topic. He had appeared at the 
opera the night before, after a year's ruralizing at " Sloperton 
cottage," as fresh and young and witty as he ever was known in 
his youth — (for Moore must be sixty at least). Lady B. said 
the only difference she could see in his appearance, was the loss of 
his curls, which once justified singularly his title of Bacchus, 
flowing about his head in thin, glossy, elastic tendrils, unlike any 
other hair she had ever seen, and comparable to nothing but the 
rings of the vine. He is now quite bald, and the change is very 
striking. D'Israeli regretted that he should have been met, 
exactly on his return to London, with the savage but clever article 
in Fraser's Magazine on his plagiarisms. "Give yourself no 
trouble about that," said Lady B., " for you may be sure he will 
never see it. Moore guards against the sight and "knowledge of 
criticism as people take precautions against the plague. He 
reads few periodicals, and but one newspaper. If a letter comes 
to him from a suspicious quarter, he burns it unopened. If a 
friend mentions a criticism to him at the club, he never forgives 
him ; and, so well is this understood among his friends, that he 
might live in London a year, and all the magazines might dissect 
him, and he would probably never hear of it. In the country he 
lives on the estate of Lord Lansdowne, his patron and best 
friend, with half a dozen other noblemen within a dinner-drive ; 
and he passes his life in this exclusive circle, like a bee in amber, 



MOORE'S LOVE OF RANK. 51 1 



perfectly preserved from everything that could blow rudely upon 
him. He takes the world en pkilosophe, and is determined to 
descend to his grave perfectly ignorant, if such things as critics 
exist." Somebody said this was weak, and D'Israeli thought it 
was wise, and made a splendid defence of his opinion, as usual, 
and I agreed with D'Israeli. Moore deserves a medal, as the 
happiest author of his day, to possess the power. 

A remark was made, in rather a satirical tone, upon Moore's 
worldliness and passion for rank. " He was sure," it was said, 
" to have four or five invitations to dine on the same day, and he 
tormented himself with the idea that he had not accepted 
perhaps the most exclusive. He would get off from an engage- 
ment with a Countess to dine with a Marchioness, and from a 
Marchioness to accept the later invitation of a Duchess ; and as 
he cared little for the society of men, and would sing and be 
delightful only for the applause of women, it mattered little 
whether one circle was more talented than another. Beauty 
was one of his passions, but rank and fashion were all the rest." 
This rather left-handed portrait was confessed by all to be just, 
Lady B. herself making no comment upon it. She gave, as an 
offset, however, some particulars of Moore's difficulties from his 
West Indian appointment, which left a balance to his credit. 

" Moore went to Jamaica with a profitable appointment. The 
climate disagreed with him, and he returned home, leaving the 
business in the hands of a confidential clerk, who embezzled 
eight thousand pounds in the course of a few months and 
absconded. Moore's politics had made him obnoxious to the 
government, and he-was called to account with unusual severity ; 
while Theodore Hook, who had been recalled at this very time 
from some foreign appointment, for a deficit of twenty thousand 



512 A GENEROUS OFFER, NOBLY REFUSED. 



pounds in his accounts, was never molested, being of the ruling 
party. Moore's misfortune awakened a great sympathy among 
his friends. Lord Lansdowne was the first to offer his aid. He 
wrote to Moore, that for many years he had been in the habit of 
laying aside from his income eight thousand pounds, for the 
encouragement of the arts and literature, and that he should feel 
that it was well disposed of for that year, if Moore would accept 
it, to free him from his difficulties. It was offered in the most 
delicate and noble manner, but Moore declined it. The members 
of (l "White's" (mostly noblemen) called a meeting, and (not 
knowing the amount of the deficit) subscribed in one morning 
twenty-five thousand pounds and wrote to the poet, that they 
would cover the sum, whatever it might be. This was declined. 
Longman and Murray then offered to pay it, and wait for their 
remuneration from his. works. He declined even this, and went 
to Passy with his family, where he economized and worked hard 
till it was cancelled." 

This was certainly a story most creditable to the poet, and it 
was told with an eloquent enthusiasm, that did the heart of the 
beautiful narrator infinite credit. I have given only the skeleton 
of it. Lady Blessington went on to mention another circum- 
stance, very honorable to Moore, of which I had never before 
heard. " At one time two different counties of Ireland had sent 
committees to him, to offer him a seat in parliament ; and as he 
depended on his writings for a subsistence, offering him at the 
same time twelve hundred pounds a year, while he continued to 
represent them. Moore was deeply touched with it, and said no 
circumstance of his life had ever gratified him so much. He 
admitted, that the honor they proposed him had been his most 
cherished ambition, but the necessity of receiving a pecuniary 



A SACRIFICE TO JUPITER. 513 



support at the same time, was an insuperable obstacle. He could 
never enter parliament with his hands tied, and his opinions and 
speech fettered, as they would be irresistibly in such circumstan- 
ces." This does not sound like " jump-up-and-kiss-me Tom 
Moore," as the Irish ladies call him ; but her ladyship vouched 
for the truth of it. It was worthy of an old Roman. 

By what transition I know not, the conversation turned on Pla- 
tonism,and D'Israeli, (who seemed to have remembered the shelf 
on which Vivian Grey was to find " the latter Platonists" in his 
father's library) " flared up," as a dandy would say, immediately. 
His wild, black eyes glistened, and his nervous lips quivered and 
poured out eloquence ; and a German professor, who had entered 
late, and the Russian Charge d'affaires who had entered later, 
and a whole ottoman-full of noble exquisites, listened with 
wonder. He gave us an account of Taylor, almost the last of 
the celebrated Platonists, who worshipped Jupiter, in a back 
parlor in London a few years ago, with undoubted sincerity. He 
had an altar and a brazen figure of the Thunderer, and performed 
his devotions as regularly as the most pious sacerdos of the 
ancients. In his old age he was turned out of the lodgings he 
had occupied for a great number of years, and went to a friend 
in much distress to complain of the injustice. He had " only 
attempted to worship his gods, according to the dictates of his 
conscience." "Did you pay your bills?" asked the friend. 
"Certainly." "Then what is the reason?" "His landlady 
had taken offence at his sacrificing a bull to Jupiter in his back 
parlor /" 

The story sounded very Vivian-Greyish, and everybody laughed 
at it as a very good invention ; but D'Israeli quoted his father as 
his authority, and it may appear in the Curiosities of Literature 
22* 



514 THE ELECTION OF SPEAKER. 



— where, however, it will never be so well told, as by the extra- 
ordinary creature from whom we had heard it. 



February 22d, 1835. — The excitement in London about the 
choice of a Speaker is something startling. It took place yester- 
day, and the party are thunderstruck at the non-election of Sir 
Manners Sutton. This is a terrible blow upon them, for it was 
a defeat at the outset ; and if they failed in a question where 
they had the immense personal popularity of the late Speaker to 
assist them, what will they do on general questions ? The House 
of Commons was surrounded all day with an excited mob. 

Lady told me last night that she drove down toward 

evening, to ascertain the result (Sir C. M. Sutton is her brother- 
in-law), and the crowd surrounded her carriage, recognizing her 
as the sister of the tory Speaker, and threatened to tear the cor- 
onet from the panels. u We'll soon put an end to your coronets," 
said a rapscallion in the mob. The tories were so confident of 
success that Sir Robert Peel gave out cards a week ago, for a 
soiree to meet Speaker Sutton, on the night of the election. 
There is a general report in town that the whigs will impeach the 
Duke of Wellington! This looks like a revolution, does it not ? 
It is very certain that the Duke and Sir Robert Peel have 
advised the King to dissolve parliament again, if there is any 
difficulty in getting on with the government. The Duke was 
dining with Lord Aberdeen the other day, when some one at table 
ventured to wonder, at his accepting a subordinate office in the 
cabinet he had himself formed. " If I could serve his majesty 



MISS PARDOE. 515 



better," said the patrician soldier, " I would ride as king's mes- 
senger to-morrow !" He certainly is a remarkable old fellow. 

Perhaps, however, literary news would interest you more. 
Bulwer is publishing in a volume, his papers from the New 
Monthly. I met him an hour ago in Regent-street, looking 
what is called in London, " uncommon seedy /" He is either 
the worst or the best dressed man in London, according to the 
time of day or night you see him. D 'Israeli, the author of 

Vivian Grey, drives about in an open carriage, with Lady S , 

looking more melancholy than usual. The absent baronet, 
whose place he fills, is about bringing an action against him, 
which will finish his career, unless he can coin the damages in 
his brain. Mrs. Hemans is dying of consumption in Ireland. I 
have been passing a week at a country house, where Miss Jane 
Porter, Miss Pardoe, and Count Krazinsky (author of the Court 
of Sigismund), are domiciliated for the present. Miss Porter is 
one of her own heroines, grown old — a still handsome and noble 
wreck of beauty. Miss Pardoe is nineteen, fair-haired, senti- 
mental, and has the smallest feet and is the best waltzer I ever 
saw, but she is not otherwise pretty. The Polish Count is 
writing the life of his grandmother, whom I should think he 
strongly resembled in person. He is an excellent fellow, for all 
that. I dined last week with Joanna Baillie, at Hampstead — the 
most charming old lady I ever saw. To-day I dine with Long- 
man to meet Tom Moore, who is living incog, near this Nestor of 
publishers at Hampstead. Moore is fagging hard on his history 
of Ireland. I shall give you the particulars of all these things in 
my letters hereafter. 

Poor Elia — my old favorite — is dead. I consider it one of the 
most fortunate things that ever happened to me, to have seen him. 



516 PRICES OF BOOKS. 



I think I sent you in one of my letters an account of my break- 
fasting in company with Charles Lamb and his sister (" Bridget 
Elia") at the Temple. The exquisite papers on his life and 
letters in the Athenaeum, are by Barry Cornwall. 

Lady Blessington's new book makes a great noise. Living as 
she does, twelve hours out of the twenty-four, in the midst of the 
most brilliant and mind-exhausting circle in London, I only won- 
der how she found the time. Yet it was written in six weeks. 
Her novels sell for a hundred pounds more than any other author's 
except Bulwer. Do you know the real prices of books ? Bulwer 
gets fifteen hundred pounds — Lady B.four hundred, Honorable 
Mrs. Norton two hundred and fifty, Lady Charlotte Bury two 
hundred, Grattan three hundred and most others below this. 
D'Israeli can not sell a book at aU i I hear ? Is not that odd ? 
I would give more for one of his novels, than for forty of the 
common saleable things about town. 

The authoress of the powerful book called Two Old Men's 
Tales, is an old unitarian lady, a Mrs. Marsh. She declares she 
will never write another, book. The other was a glorious one, 
though ! 



LETTER LXXV- 

LONDON THE POET MOORE LAST DAYS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

MOORE'S OPINION OF O'CONNELL ANACREON AT THE PIANO 

DEATH OF BYRON A SUPPRESSED ANECDOTE. 

I called on Moore with a letter of introduction, and met him 
at the door of his lodgings. I knew him instantly from the pic- 
tures I had seen of him, but was surprised at the diminutiveness 
of his person. He is much below the middle size, and with his 
white hat and long chocolate frock-coat, was far from prepos- 
sessing in his appearance. With this material disadvantage, 
however, his address is gentleman-like to a very marked degree, 
and, I should think no one could see Moore without conceiving a 
strong liking for him. As I was to meet him at dinner, I did not 
detain him. In the moment's conversation that passed, he 
inquired very particularly after "Washington Irving, expressing 
for him the warmest friendship, and asked what Cooper was 
doing. 

I was at Lady Blessington's at eight. Moore had not arrived, 
but the other persons of the party — a Russian count, who spoke 
all the languages of Europe as well as his own ; a Roman banker, 
whose dynasty is more powerful than the pope's ; a clever English 



518 A DINNER AT LADY BLESSIXGTON'S. 



nobleman, and the " observed of all observers," Count D'Orsay, 
stood in the window upon the park, killing, as they might, the 
melancholy twilight half hour preceding dinner. 

"Mr. Moore !" cried the footman at the bottom of the staircase, 
"Mr. Moore!" cried the footman at the top. And with his 
glass at his eye, stumbling over an ottoman between his near- 
sightedness and the darkness of the room, enter the poet. Half 
a glance tells you that he is at home on a carpet. Sliding his 
little feet up to Lady Blessington (of whom he was a lover when 
she was sixteen, and to whom some of the sweetest of his songs 
were written), he made his compliments, with a gayety and an 
ease combined with a kind of worshipping deference, that was 
worthy of a prime-minister at the court of love. With the gentle- 
men, all of whom he knew, he had the frank merry manner of a 
confident favorite, and he was greeted like one. He went from 
one to the other, straining back his head to look up at them (for, 
singularly enough, every gentleman in the room was six feet high 
and upward), and to every one he said something which, from 
any one else, would have seemed peculiarly felicitous, but which 
fell from his lips, as if his breath was not more spontaneous. 

Dinner was announced, the Russian handed down " milady," 
and I found myself seated opposite Moore, with a blaze of light 
on his Bacchus head, and the mirrors, with which the superb 
octagonal room is pannelled, reflecting every motion. To see 
him only at table, you would think him not a small man. His 
principal length is in his body, and his head and shoulders are 
those of a much larger person. Consequently he sits taU, and 
with the peculiar erectness of head and neck, his diminutiveness 
disappears. 

The soup vanished in the busy silence that beseems it, and as 



SCOTT— THE ITALIANS. 51 9 

the courses commenced their procession, Lady Blessmgton led the 
conversation with the brilliancy and ease, for which she is remark- 
able over all the women of her time. She had received from Sir 
William Gell, at Naples, the manuscript of a volume upon the 
last days of Sir Walter Scott. It was a melancholy chronicle of 
imbecility, and the book was suppressed, but there were two or 
three circumstances narrated in its pages which were interesting. 
Soon after his arrival at Naples, Sir Walter went with his 
physician and one or two friends to the great museum . It 
happened that on the same day a large collection of students and 
Italian literati were assembled, in one of the rooms, to discuss 
some newly-discovered manuscripts. It was soon known that the 
"Wizard of the North" was there, and a deputation was sent 
immediately, to request him to honor them by presiding at their 
session. At this time Scott was a wreck, with a memory that 
retained nothing for a moment, and limbs almost as helpless as 
an infant's. He was dragging about among the relics of Pompeii, 
taking no interest in anything he saw, when their request was 
made known to him through his physician. " No, no," said he, 
" I know nothing of their lingo. Tell them I am not well* enough 
to come." He loitered on, and in about half an hour after, he 
turned to Dr. H. and said, " who was that you said wanted to see 
me ?" The doctor explained. " I'll go," said he, " they shall 
see me if they wish it ;" and, against the advice of his friends, 
who feared it would be too much for his strength, he mounted 
the staircase, and made his appearance at the door. A burst of 
enthusiastic cheers welcomed him on the threshold, and formino- 
in two lines, many of them on their knees, they seized his hands 
as he passed, kissed them, thanked him in their passionate 
language for the delight with which he had filled the world, and 



520 SCOTT'S MODE OF LIVING. 



placed him in the chair with the most fervent expressions of 
gratitude for his condescension. The discussion went on, but not 
understanding a syllable of the language, Scott was soon wearied, 
and his friends observed it, pleaded the state of his health as an 
apology, and he rose to take his leave. These enthusiastic 
children of the south crowded once more around him, and with 
exclamations of affection and even tears, kissed his hands once 
more, assisting his tottering steps, and sent after him a confused 
murmur of blessings as the door closed on his retiring form. It 
is described by the writer as the most affecting scene he had ever 
witnessed. 

Some other remarks were made upon Scott, but the parole was 
soon yielded to Moore, who gave us an account of a visit he made 
to Abbotsford when its illustrious owner was in his pride and 
prime. " Scott," he said, " was the most manly and natural 
character in the world. You felt when with him, that he was 
the soul of truth and heartiness. His hospitality was as simple 
and open as the day, and he lived freely himself, and expected 
his guests to do so. I remember him giving us whiskey at 
dinner, and Lady Scott met my look of surprise with the 
assurance that Sir Walter seldom dined without it. He never 
ate or drank to excess, but he had no system, his constitution 
was herculean, and he denied himself nothing. I went once from 
a dinner party with Sir Thomas Lawrence to meet Scott at 
Lockhart's. "VVe had hardly entered the room when we were set 
down to a hot supper of roast chickens, salmon, punch, etc., etc., 
and Sir Walter ate immensely of everything. What a contrast 
between this and the last time I saw him in London ! He had 
come down to embark for Italy — broken quite down in mind and 
body. He gave Mrs. Moore a book, and I asked him if he would 



O'CONNELL. 521. 



make it more valuable by writing in it. He thought I meant 
that he should write some verses, and said, ' Oh I never write 
poetry now.' I asked him to write only his own name and hers, 
and he attempted it, but it was quite illegible." 

Some one remarked that Scott's life of Napoleon was a failure. 

" I think little of it," said Moore ; " but after all, it was an 
embarrassing task, and Scott did what a wise man would do — 
made as much of his subject as was politic and necessary, and no 
more." 

u It will not live," said some one else ; " as much because it is 
a bad book, as because it is the life of an individual." 

" But what an individual !" Moore replied. " Yoltaire's life 
of Charles the Twelfth was the life of an individual, yet that will 
live and be read as long as there is a book in the world, and 
what was he to Napoleon ?" 

O'Connell was mentioned. 

" He is a powerful creature," said Moore, " but his eloquence 
has done great harm both to England and Ireland. There is 
nothing so powerful as oratory. The faculty of ' thinking on his 
legsf is a tremendous engine in the hands of any man. There is 
an undue admiration for this faculty, and a sway permitted to it, 
which was always more dangerous to a country than anything else. 
Lord Althorp is a wonderful instance of what a man may do 
■without talking. There is a general confidence in him — a 
universal belief in his honesty, which serves him instead. Peel 
is a fine speaker, but, admirable as he had been as an opposition- 
ist, he failed, when he came to lead the house. O'Connell would 
be irresistible were it not for the two blots on his character — the 
contributions in Ireland for his support, and his refusal to give 
satisfaction to the man he is still coward enough to attack. They 



522 GRATTAN. 



may say what they will of duelling, it is the great preserver of the 
decencies of society. The old school, which made a man respon- 
sible for his words, was the better. I must confess I think so. 
Then, in O'Connell's case, he had not made his vow against 
duelling when Peel challenged him. He accepted the challenge, 
and Peel went to Dover on his way to France, where they were 
to meet ; and O'Connell pleaded his wife's illness, and delayed till 
the law interfered. Some other Irish patriot, about the same 
time, refused a challenge on account of the illness of his daughter, 
and one of the Dublin wits made a good epigram on the two : — 

" ' Some men, with a horror of slaughter, 
Improve on the scripture command. 

And ' honor their' wife and daughter — 

That their days may be long in the land.' " 

The great period of Ireland's glory was between '82 and '98, 
and it was a time when a man almost lived with a pistol in his 
hand. Grattan's dying advice to his son, was, i Be always ready 
with the pistol !' He, himself never hesitated a moment. At 
one time, there was a kind of conspiracy to fight him out of the 
world. On some famous question, Corrie was employed purpose- 
ly to bully him, and made a personal attack of the grossest 
virulence. Grattan was so ill, at the time, as to be supported 
into the house between two friends. He rose to reply ; and first, 
without alluding to Corrie at all, clearly and entirely overturned 
every argument he had advanced, that bore upon the question. 
He then paused a moment, and stretching out his arm, as if he 
would reach across the house, said, * For the assertions the 
gentleman has been pleased to make with regard to myself, my 
answer here, is they are false ! elsewhere, it would be — a blow ! 



MOORE'S MANNER OF TALKING. 523 



They met, and Grattan shot him through the arm. Corrie 
proposed another shot, but Grattan said, ( No ! let the curs fight 
it out !' and they were friends ever after. I like the old story of 
the Irishman, who was challenged by some desperate blackguard. 
8 Fight him /' said he, ' I would sooner go to my grave without a 
fight ! Talking of Grattan, is it not wonderful that, with all the 
agitation in Ireland, we have had no such men since his time ? 
Look at the Irish newspapers. The whole country in convulsions 
— people's lives, fortunes, and religion, at stake, and not a gleam 
of talent from one year's end to the other. It is natural for 
sparks to be struck out in a time of violence, like this — but 
Ireland, for all that is worth living for, is dead! You can 
scarcely reckon Shiel of the calibre of her spirits of old, and 
O'Connell, with all his faults, stands ' alone in his glory.' " 

The conversation I have thus run together is a mere skeleton, 
of course. Nothing but a short- hand report could retain the 
delicacy and elegance of Moore's language, and memory itself 
cannot embody again the kind of frost-work of imagery, which 
was formed and melted on his lips. His voice is soft or firm as 
the subject requires, but perhaps the word gentlemanly describes 
it better than any other. It is upon a natural key, but, if I may 
so phrase it, it is fused with a high-bred affectation, expressing 
deference and courtesy, at the same time, that its pauses are 
constructed peculiarly to catch the ear. It would be difficult not 
to attend to him while he is talking, though the subject were but 
the shape of a wine-glass. 

Moore's head is distinctly before me while I write, but I shall 
find it difficult to describe. His hair, which curled once all over 
it in long tendrils, unlike anybody else's in the world, and which 
probably suggested his sobriquet of " Bacchus," is diminished 



524 LADY BLESSINGTON'S TACT. 



now to a few curls sprinkled with gray, and scattered in a single 
ring above his ears. His forehead is wrinkled, with the exception 
of a most prominent development of the organ of gayety, which, 
singularly enough, shines with the lustre and smooth polish of a 
pearl, and is surrounded by a semicircle of lines drawn close 
about it, like entrenchments against Time. His eyes still sparkle 
like a champaign bubble, though the invader has drawn his 
pencillings about the corners ; and there is a kind of wintry red, 
of the tinge of an October leaf, that seems enamelled on his 
cheek, the eloquent record of the claret his wit has brightened. 
His mouth is the most characteristic feature of all. The lips are 
delicately cut, slight and changeable as an aspen ; but there is a 
set-up look about the lower lip, a determination of the muscle to 
a particular expression, and you fancy that you can almost see 
wit astride upon it. It is written legibly with the imprint of 
habitual success. It is arch, confident, and half diffident, as if he 
were disguising his pleasure at applause, while another bright 
gleam of fancy was breaking on him. The slightly-tossed nose 
confirms the fun of the expression, and altogether it is a face that 
sparkles, beams, radiates, — everything but feels. Fascinating 
beyond all men as he is, Moore looks like a worldling. 

This description may be supposed to have occupied the hour 
after Lady Blessington retired from the table ; for, with her, 
vanished Moore's excitement, and everybody else seemed to feel, 
that light had gone out of the room. Her excessive beauty is 
less an inspiration than the wondrous talent with which she 
draws from every person around her his peculiar excellence. 
Talking better than anybody else, and narrating, particularly, 
with a graphic power that I never saw excelled, this distinguished 
woman seems striving only to make others unfold themselves ; 



MOORE'S SINGING. 525 



and never had diffidence a more apprehensive and encouraging 
listener. But this is a subject with which I should never be 
done. 

We went up to coffee, and Moore brightened again over his 
ckasse-cafSj and went glittering on with criticisms on Grrisi, the 
delicious songstress now ravishing the world, whom he placed 
above all but Pasta ; and whom he thought, with the exception 
that her legs were too short, an incomparable creature. This 
introduced music very naturally, and with a great deal of diffi- 
culty he was taken to the piano. My letter is getting long, and I 
have no time to describe his singing. It is well known, however, 
that its effect is only equalled by the beauty of his own words ; 
and, for one, I could have taken him into my heart with my 
delight. He makes no attempt at music. It is a kind of admir- 
able recitative, in which every shade of thought is syllabled and 
dwelt upon, and the sentiment of the song goes through your 
blood, warming you to the very eyelids, and starting your tears, 
if you have soul or sense in you. I have heard of women's 
fainting at a song of Moore's ; and if the burden of it answered 
by chance, to a secret in the bosom of the listener, I should 
think, from its comparative effect upon so old a stager as myself, 
that the heart would break with it. 

We all sat around the piano, and after two or three songs of 
Lady Blessington's choice, he rambled over the keys awhile, and 
sang u When first I met thee," with a pathos that " beggars 
description. When the last word had faltered out, he rose and 
took Lady Blessington's hand, said good-night, and was gone 
before a word was uttered. For a full minute after he had closed 
the door, no one spoke. I could have wished, for myself, to 



526 A CURIOUS INCIDENT. 



drop silently asleep where I sat, with the tears in my eyes and the 
softness upon my heart. 

" Here's a health to thee, Tom Moore !" 



T was in company the other evening where Westmacott, the 
sculptor, was telling a story of himself and Leigh Hunt. They 
were together one day at Fiesole, when a butterfly, of an uncom- 
mon sable color, alighted on Westmacott 's forehead, and remained 
there several minutes. Hunt immediately cried out, " The spirit 
of some dear friend is departed," and as they entered the gate of 
Florence on their return, some one met them and informed them 
of the death of Byron, the news of which had at that moment 
arrived. 



I have just time before the packet sails to send you an anec- 
dote, that is bought out of the London papers. A nobleman, 
living near Belgrave square, received a visit a day or two ago 
from a police officer, who stated to him, that he had a man-ser- 
vant in his house, who had escaped from Botany Bay. His 
Lordship was somewhat surprised, but called up the male part of 
his household, at the officer's request, and passed them in review. 
The culprit was not among them. The officer then requested to 
see the female part of the establishment ; and, to the inexpressi- 
ble astonishment of the whole household, he laid his hand upon 
the shoulder of the ladyh confidential maid, and informed her she 
was his prisoner. A change of dress was immediately sent for, 



THE MAID METAMORPHOSED. 527 



and miladi's dressing-maid was re-metamorphosed into an effemi- 
nate-looking fellow, and marched off to a new trial. It is a 
most extraordinary thing, that he had lived unsuspected in the 
family for nine months, performing all the functions of a confi- 
dential Abigail, and very much in favor with his unsuspecting 
mistress, who is rather a serious person, and would as soon have 
thought of turning out to be a man herself. It is said, that the 
husband once made a remark upon the huskiness of the maid's 
voice, but no other comment was ever made, reflecting in the least 
upon her qualities as a member of the beaio seze. The story is 
quite authentic, but hushed up out of regard to the lady. 






.-:£, 






